Boeinghttp://nlpc.org/taxonomy/term/329/all
enFAA Warning Raises More Questions About Boeing Batterieshttp://nlpc.org/stories/2015/07/27/faa-warning-raises-more-questions-about-boeing-batteries
<p><img alt="Boeing 787 Dreamliner" border="0" height="197" src="http://nlpc.org/files/boeing-787-dreamliner1_0.jpg" style="float: right; border: 0px;" width="250" />It appears &ndash; two years after <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/boeing">Boeing</a> had fire incidents from installed <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/lithium-ion-batteries">lithium ion batteries</a> that shut down deliveries of its vaunted <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/dreamliner">Dreamliner 787</a> &ndash; that its <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/05/29/dreamliner-flies-doubts-persist-about-boeings-batteries">&ldquo;solution&rdquo;</a> to &ldquo;vent&rdquo; heat and flames outside the aircrafts has prevented any catastrophes, so far.</p>
<p>But it hasn&rsquo;t alleviated concerns about the batteries&rsquo; physics and makeup. Last week Boeing <a href="http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Boeing-warns-airlines-against-flying-battery-shipments-316432411.html">issued a warning to its airline customers</a> to not carry bulk shipments of lithium-ions because if they catch fire or overheat, they&rsquo;re unstoppable. A spokesman told the Associated Press that the manufacturer has advised airlines not to transport the batteries &ldquo;until safer methods of packaging and transport are established and implemented.&rdquo; Likewise, the FAA simultaneously stated that its research has found that carriage of lithium ion batteries &ldquo;presents a risk.&rdquo;</p>
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<p>The alert was industry-wide. At a safety forum held last week in Washington by the Air Line Pilots Association, Boeing&rsquo;s fire protection system specialist Doug Ferguson <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air-transport/2015-07-22/boeing-explains-its-lithium-battery-warning-airlines">explained</a> what led to the decision to issue the warning. He said standard fire suppression systems employed on aircraft, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromotrifluoromethane">called Halon 1301</a>, are ineffective against the &ldquo;thermal runaway&rdquo; that bulk quantities of lithium ion batteries are known for.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Unrestricted quantities of lithium batteries that are involved in a cargo fire&hellip;can still create hazards that would effect the continued safe flight and landing of the aircraft,&rdquo; Ferguson said, &ldquo;particularly depending on the location, the type and quantity of batteries and the time required for a safe landing.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Boeing, after dismissing any fears about <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/16/travel/dreamliner-faa/index.html?hpt=hp_t3">fires in the lithium-ion batteries</a> that power most of the Dreamliner&rsquo;s systems (<a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/04/28/boeing-cause-dreamliner-fires-almost-doesnt-matter">saying &ldquo;it almost doesn&rsquo;t matter&rdquo; what caused them</a>), apparently had an intervention from a higher power. <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air-transport/2015-07-22/boeing-explains-its-lithium-battery-warning-airlines">According to Aviation International News</a>, the International Coordinating Council of Aerospace Industries Associations issued recommendations regarding transport of lith-ions. Boeing and fellow manufacturers Airbus, Embraer and Bombardier participated in developing the advisory, with plans to meet soon to work on packaging that can contain or mitigate thermal runaway fires.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What has happened,&rdquo; Ferguson added, &ldquo;is that testing has shown that there are higher rates of smoke production, flammable vapor, pressures and temperatures that occur with fires that involve&hellip;lithium-ion batteries&hellip;.than with ordinary Class A type combustibles &ndash; paper products for instance.&rdquo;</p>
<p>So did Boeing learn something new all of a sudden? Or was the company pressed by industry groups to align with them over their serious concerns about the dangers of lithium-ion batteries? According to a physicist who has closely followed the Boeing situation, and battery fires in general, the dangers of bundled lith-ions and the shortcomings of Halon are nothing new.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It was already very well-known 5 years ago that Halon has no chance whatsoever to extinguish a fire involving significant numbers of Lithium-ion batteries in air cargo,&rdquo; said Lewis Larsen of Chicago-based Lattice Energy. &ldquo;The notion that it would take yet another 5 years for this particular epiphany to finally dawn on them is simply not believable.&rdquo;</p>
<p>At the safety forum Ferguson said in testing, the Halon controlled flames, but the thermal heat that migrated from battery to battery was unaffected. It&rsquo;s a phenomenon with which Ferguson and Boeing&rsquo;s safety team should be well experienced. Two Japanese airlines suffered battery fires on Dreamliners in January 2013, which spurred the Federal Aviation Administration to <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/27/boeing-battery-quick-fix-may-be-elusive">shut down operations</a> while the incidents were investigated. And in 2006 a 787 battery explosion <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/business/787-battery-blew-up-in-rsquo06-lab-test-burned-down-building/">caused a &ldquo;devastating lab fire&rdquo; in Arizona</a>, burning a 10,000-square-foot facility to the ground.</p>
<p>Two years ago Larsen <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/05/29/dreamliner-flies-doubts-persist-about-boeings-batteries">said</a> debris from a thermal runaway event on a Japan Air Lines Dreamliner showed that heat from internal shorts reached temperatures far higher than Boeing engineers likely contemplated in their design. The evidence showed that temperatures reached to the boiling point for stainless steel and then turned into gaseous vapor.</p>
<p>Boeing, however, was not to be deterred from its <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/22/boeings-green-dreamliner-costing-company-and-customers-plenty">celebrated, fuel-efficient &ldquo;green&rdquo; Dreamliner</a>, which is loaded with the troublesome batteries. Despite never finding out what caused the Japanese airlines&rsquo; fires, the company <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/04/28/boeing-cause-dreamliner-fires-almost-doesnt-matter">took measures</a> designed to vent heat and flames outside the fuselage and thus mitigate risk, rather than try to detect the cause of the fires in the first place.</p>
<p>The FAA says the solution is good enough, but that may not instill confidence since the agency <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/11/travel/boeing-787-dreamliner-investigation-report/">certified the airworthiness</a> of the Dreamliner batteries in the first place. A National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the original fires determined that both FAA and Boeing <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/faa-boeing-and-gs-yuasa-all-faulted-over-dreamliner-battery-fire-ntsb-says-1417465012">failed to sufficiently oversee the batteries&rsquo; manufacturing process</a>, which opened the door to design flaws. The list of failures in the safety inspection process <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-negroni/dreamliner-battery-still-_b_6254628.html">is reportedly lengthy</a>.</p>
<p>The problems haven&rsquo;t fully dissipated. In January 2014 Japan Air Lines <a href="http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/boeing-confirms-new-787-battery-problem-in-tokyo-394831/">suffered another malfunction with a Dreamliner battery overheating</a>, with reported smoke and liquid coming out. Last month an Aeromexico Dreamliner <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/29/us-aeromexico-emergency-idUSKCN0P91V420150629">made an emergency landing in Ireland</a> due to an alert in the cargo hold, but a spokesman said there was no fire. The cause has not yet been announced. And in May the FAA <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/02/us/boeing-787-dreamliner-faa-directive/">issued a maintenance mandate</a> for the Dreamliner, after testing showed the plane could lose all electrical power after being continuously powered for 248 days.</p>
<p>Flyer, beware.</p>
<p><em>Paul Chesser is an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center and publishes </em><a href="http://www.carolinaplotthound.com/"><em>CarolinaPlottHound.com</em></a><em>, an aggregator of North Carolina news.</em></p>
AeromexicoBoeingCorporate Integrity ProjectDreamlinerFederal Aviation AdministrationGovernment Integrity ProjectJapan Air Lineslithium ion batteriesNational Transportation Safety BoardMon, 27 Jul 2015 14:02:06 +0000Paul Chesser5218 at http://nlpc.org2013: Veils of Secrecy as More 'Green' Taxpayer Money Disappearshttp://nlpc.org/stories/2013/12/23/2013-veils-secrecy-more-green-taxpayer-money-disappears
<p><img style="float: right;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/Money-down-the-drain.jpg" border="0" alt="Money down the drain" width="200" height="134" />Last year at this time NLPC <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/12/31/2012-year-taxpayer-%E2%80%98green%E2%80%99-waste">reviewed 2012</a> as &ldquo;The Year of Taxpayer &lsquo;Green&rsquo; Waste,&rdquo; and that description applied to 2013 as well. But additional trends of government opaqueness and inattention to safety and security &ndash; often related to <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/stimulus">stimulus</a>-funded programs and their corporate beneficiaries &ndash; were also revealed.</p>
<p><!--break--></p>
<p><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">EPA, Dept. of Energy Secretive About Communications</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/people/president-obama">President Obama</a> began his second term, watchdogs of the administration&rsquo;s environmental (<a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/environmental-protection-agency">EPA</a>, Dept. of Interior) and energy (<a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/department-energy">Department of Energy</a>) cabinet spaces discovered that officials maintained secret email accounts to conduct government business out of public view. Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute uncovered a fake identity maintained by EPA Administrator <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/people/lisa-jackson">Lisa Jackson</a> while researching his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1451694881/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1451694881&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=chrishorneron-20">The Liberal War on Transparency</a>. The effort to access her messages and those of other officials has been protracted.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">EPA <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/16/epa-transparency-still-question-after-release-jacksons-alias-email-account">began producing records</a> in January from Jackson&rsquo;s &ldquo;Richard Windsor&rdquo; email account that had a lot of text obliterated with black marker &ndash; so much that Horner called it a &ldquo;defective compilation (that) boasts an impressively anemic content-to-volume ratio.&rdquo; Even the name &ldquo;Windsor&rdquo; was redacted from the messages.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know any other agency that does this,&rdquo; said Anne Weismann, chief counsel of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, <a href="http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=2EFEAE6E-1404-437A-A24F-F8283F7E8FD7">to Politico</a>. &ldquo;Why would you pick a fictitious name of someone of different gender? To me it smacks of&hellip;trying to hide.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It did, and the scrutiny and <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/freedom-information-act">Freedom of Information Act</a> requests got to the point where Jackson &ndash; even though she had left EPA and was working for <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/apple-inc">Apple, Inc.</a> &ndash; in August <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/08/28/lisa-jackson-hires-lawyer-email-concealment-fiasco">hired a lawyer</a> as new details of her use of private email accounts to conduct official government business were revealed. She <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/09/16/house-committee-grills-doe-loan-program-director-over-secret-emails">underwent intense scrutiny</a> in a September hearing before the <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/house-committee-oversight-and-government-reform">House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform</a>, and tried to make the case that it was perfectly normal to direct officials that she regulates to communicate with her via a difficult-to-detect independent email account.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The same hearing featured testimony from <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/people/jonathan-silver">Jonathan Silver</a>, former director of the Department of Energy&rsquo;s <a href="https://lpo.energy.gov/">Loan Program Office</a>. He came under fire &ndash; especially from Committee Republican <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/people/jim-jordan">Jim Jordan</a> of Ohio &ndash; about his directives to subordinates to keep messages out of the public eye. The Congressman confronted Silver, who came to the loan program from the venture capital realm, with an email he sent in August 2011 from his personal account to a few staff members.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ever send an email on doe email with private addresses,&rdquo; Silver wrote to a DOE colleague&rsquo;s Gmail account. &ldquo;That makes them subpoenable (sic) (i.e., subject to subpoena).&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Silver&rsquo;s explanations about his desire for secrecy were equal in flimsiness to his justifications for funding failed loan program recipients such as <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/fisker">Fisker Automotive</a> and <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/solyndra">Solyndra</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Not every investment will be successful, but the vast majority have been,&rdquo; Silver testified.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;The taxpayer got the shaft all the way around in this program,&rdquo; Jordan said.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Inspector General scrutiny</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It wasn&rsquo;t only Republicans who were critical of the way DOE handled its business &ndash; the agency&rsquo;s Inspector General, <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/people/gregory-friedman">Gregory Friedman</a>, was <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/11/06/inspector-general-says-doe-hid-vital-info-audit-bankrupt-ecotality">exasperated to learn</a> that DOE withheld information as his staff conducted an <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/07/30/taxpayer-millions-squandered-ev-charging-study-project">audit</a> earlier this year of <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/electric-vehicles">electric vehicle</a> charging company <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/ecotality">Ecotality</a>. It forced the IG to issue a <a href="http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/11/f4/OAS-RA-14-01.pdf">second report</a> that slammed DOE for its concealment of facts.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Information that raised questions about Ecotality&rsquo;s ability to meet its project goals, including completing planned EV charger installations and the collection of EV usage data, was not provided even though the data had a readily apparent connection to our in-process audit,&rdquo; the IG reported in November.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There were many other examples of Friedman&rsquo;s office finding fault with how DOE managed projects and oversaw funding recipients. In the original Ecotality audit &ndash; which still found plenty of problems despite missing information &ndash; the IG discovered that the $135 million EV Project administered by Ecotality <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/07/30/taxpayer-millions-squandered-ev-charging-study-project">largely squandered funds</a> on electric auto owners for things like Internet service and home chargers in order to get them to participate in the program. The intent was to gather data on how the chargers were used by EV owners, but weaker than expected demand for electric cars meant there was a diminished need for chargers, so fewer were deployed in the identified markets. As a result the chargers were underused and data collection was weaker than expected, thus making the entire project a waste of time and money.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Friedman has investigated other DOE stimulus recipients, including electric vehicle battery maker <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/lg-chem">LG Chem</a>, which received a $151 million grant but had little for its employees to do. Reports in 2012 told of workers on the clock playing Texas Hold &lsquo;Em and video games, doing Sudoku and crossword puzzles, and volunteering at nonprofits like Habitat for Humanity &ndash; all of which Friedman <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/02/18/inspector-general-confirms-fun-games-lg-chem">confirmed</a> in a February 2013 <a href="http://energy.gov/ig/downloads/special-report-oas-ra-13-10">audit</a>. He reported that DOE &ldquo;did not always take sufficient action to ensure adequate oversight of project progress&rdquo; and said monitoring was so poor that &ndash; despite the obvious evidence in early 2012 of LG Chem employee furloughs, construction delays and cost overruns &ndash; no red flags were raised at DOE.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Our review revealed that LG Chem Michigan inappropriately claimed and was reimbursed for labor charges incurred&hellip;for activities that did not benefit the project&hellip;,&rdquo; the IG&rsquo;s report said. &ldquo;We were unable to calculate the exact loss to the government because LG Chem Michigan did not track labor activities in detail.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The IG&rsquo;s discoveries at DOE extended beyond fun and games on the taxpayer dime &ndash; in an April report Friedman <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/04/21/dysfunction-and-incompetence-rampant-dept-energy">revealed</a> that mismanagement and unprofessionalism under previous Secretary <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/people/steven-chu">Steven Chu</a> led to compromises in security. In a review of the department&rsquo;s Office of Special Operations, which is tasked with the protection of the Secretary and other top officials within the branch, the IG uncovered a situation among staff in which there was mistrust, unwillingness to work together, irreconcilable differences and low morale. He said there were numerous examples of agents who registered complaints about each other, and noted a deep animosity of employees towards one another.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As a consequence, security staff was poorly trained and lacked equipment they needed. Unfortunately the IG&rsquo;s findings were not a shock, as the waste, fraud and dysfunction were the <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/04/21/dysfunction-and-incompetence-rampant-dept-energy">continuation of a trend</a> under Chu and the Obama administration.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Bankrupt Companies Sold on the Cheap</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As the year began, one of the biggest embarrassments (there are so many) for DOE &ndash; battery maker A123 Systems &ndash; finished its bankruptcy process and the sale of its remaining assets to <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/china">Chinese</a>-owned <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/wanxiang-group">Wanxiang America Corp</a>. The sale was controversial, as current and retired elected officials and military leaders, who were concerned about the transfer of U.S.-funded intellectual property and military know-how to businesses closely tied to the Communist regime. A <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">U.S. News &amp; World Report</em> <a href="http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2013/01/14/united-states-shouldnt-hand-over-battery-technology-to-china">piece</a> by former Reps. Ike Skelton, a Democrat, and Duncan Hunter, a Republican, questioned why a sale of A123&rsquo;s valuable battery technology to a company owned by one of China&rsquo;s wealthiest tycoons &ndash; Lu Guanqiu, a <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-26/china-s-billionaire-lawmakers-make-u-s-peers-look-like-paupers.html">longtime member of the National People&rsquo;s Congress</a> &ndash; was even a consideration.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;The trade secrets and patents that would be controlled by the Wanxiang Group resulted from a decade of trial and error by some of America&rsquo;s finest scientists, with much of the work funded by U.S. taxpayers,&rdquo; the former congressmen wrote. Nevertheless the deal received the needed approval from the <a href="http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/international/Pages/Committee-on-Foreign-Investment-in-US.aspx">Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The electric vehicle company whose official bankruptcy declaration has been anticipated for over a year &ndash; Fisker Automotive &ndash; <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/02/21/taxpayer-supported-fisker-headed-china-too">shopped themselves in China also</a>, as well as elsewhere in Asia. While national security concerns were not at stake over the technology of Fisker&rsquo;s $102,000 drivable electric toy for rich people, Republican members of Congress were still not thrilled at the prospect of another company funded by millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars being sold on the cheap to the Chinese.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Obama&rsquo;s green energy investments appear to be nothing more than venture capital for eventual Chinese acquisitions&hellip;,&rdquo; said Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. &ldquo;After stimulus-funded A123 was just acquired by a Chinese-based company, it&rsquo;s troubling to see that yet another struggling taxpayer-backed company might be purchased under duress by a Chinese company.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As it turned out, Thune&rsquo;s concerns were totally unfounded &ndash; instead Fisker was sold to a group called Hybrid Technology LLC, led by Richard Li, the son of Hong Kong&rsquo;s richest man, which is <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-22/fisker-to-sell-assets-in-bankruptcy-at-139-million-loss.html">buying the leftovers for $25 million</a>. Bloomberg reported that Fisker listed assets of $500 million and debts of up to $1 billion in its Chapter 11 filing. As the deal was announced at the end of November, DOE said the ultimate loss to U.S. taxpayers would be $139 million. The state of Delaware, which forked out $21 million to Fisker for the purpose of producing vehicles at a former GM plant, <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/12/06/delaware-taxpayers-out-21m-thanks-does-fisker-flop">won&rsquo;t see its &ldquo;investment&rdquo; recovered either</a>. The fact that a handful of company executives <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/12/13/fisker-execs-kept-salaries-while-employees-taxpayers-got-taken">continued to pay themselves well into six-figures all last year</a>, while producing no vehicles, added insult to taxpayers&rsquo; injury.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Another electric vehicle company, <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/smith-electric-vehicles">Smith Electric Vehicles</a>, showed in July that its <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/07/08/bottomless-subsidies-needed-keep-doe-electric-truck-project-alive">viability is almost entirely dependent on the continuation of subsidies and giveaways</a> backed by taxpayers. The company backed off of a planned initial public offering, showing little evidence it can inspire demand for its electric commercial trucks. Smith Electric lost $17.5 million in 2009, $30.3 million in 2010, $52.5 million in 2011, and $27.3 million through June 30 of 2012, and the <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kansas City Star</em> reported in early September that Smith cut its production expectations and warning it is running low on cash, citing filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In January NLPC associate fellow Mark Modica <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/18/cbo-says-ev-subsidies-cost-75-billion-little-benefits">discovered</a> a CBO <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43576">report</a> that estimated the cost to taxpayers for federal policies to subsidize the manufacture and purchase of electric vehicles. The outlook was that federal subsidies would cost taxpayers $7.5 billion over the next few years for little or no benefit to total gas consumption or emissions. Last month Modica reported in an <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/11/22/taxpayers-pay-176-gallon-gas-%E2%80%9Csaved%E2%80%9D-chevy-volt">analysis</a> that, based upon the $3 billion it cost for taxpayers to subsidize <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/general-motors">General Motors</a>&rsquo; <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/chevy-volt">Chevy Volt</a>, Americans paid $176 per gallon to save the equivalent of 17 million gallons of gasoline. How &ldquo;sustainable&rdquo; is that?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Tale of Two Teslas</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For the majority of 2013 <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/tesla">Tesla Motors</a> &ndash; led by celebrity CEO <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/people/elon-musk">Elon Musk</a> of Paypal and SpaceX fame &ndash; saw its popularity and its stock price skyrocket. Shares quadrupled as Wall Street and tech fanboys <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/09/04/critic-tesla-had-repay-its-dept-energy-loan-avoid-default">proclaimed the first success of an electric vehicle business</a>. The California-based phenomenon <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/05/07/test">claimed</a> two consecutive profitable quarters, but <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/08/09/government-gamed-markets-and-subsidies-give-tesla-another-profitable-quarter">only because of revenue generated from the sales of the Golden State&rsquo;s zero emissions credit program</a>. New Energy Secretary <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/people/ernest-moniz">Ernest Moniz</a> announced that DOE would <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/08/29/new-energy-secretary-wants-waste-more-money-ev-loans">renew its efforts to generate interest</a> in the Loan Program&rsquo;s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program &ndash; which the GAO <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/03/28/gao-bad-publicity-scaring-prospects-away-stimulus-money">said had a &ldquo;negative public image&rdquo;</a> because of all media coverage of its beneficiaries had received &ndash; thanks to the Tesla &ldquo;success.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Alas, the shine began to wear off in late autumn, <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/10/04/tesla-fire-about-rushing-subsidizing-immature-technology-not-stock-price">thanks</a> to three <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/10/30/new-tesla-fires-old-volt-ones-explained-not-absolved">fires</a> in Tesla Model S&rsquo;s <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/11/08/another-fire-quarterly-loss-calif-dependency-ominous-tesla">within a six-week period</a>. Some formerly fawning media and investors have suddenly become skeptical, despite Tesla&rsquo;s claims that the fires only occurred because the car&rsquo;s <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/lithium-ion-batteries">lithium ion battery</a> &ndash; which extends along the undercarriage of the Model S &ndash; were punctured because they ran over large metallic objects or in the case of one fire, suffered a collision. Nonetheless the <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/nhtsa">National Highway Traffic Safety Administration</a> announced it would investigate Tesla, and correspondingly Tesla&rsquo;s stock price has declined roughly 25 percent from the peak it experienced in late September.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Another fire, this time in a southern California Model S owner&rsquo;s garage, <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/12/20/more-fires-more-subsidies-tesla-california">occurred last week</a>. While it clearly did not involve the car itself, there is debate between Tesla and local fire authorities about the culpability of the charging system.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Boeing&rsquo;s Unsolved Battery Fires</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Scarier than the electric car battery fires &ndash; called &ldquo;thermal runaway&rdquo; events &ndash; were those that struck <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/boeing">Boeing</a>&rsquo;s new <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/dreamliner">Dreamliner</a> as the year began. The new <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/22/boeings-green-dreamliner-costing-company-and-customers-plenty">&ldquo;green&rdquo; jet</a>, which was built to satisfy customers&rsquo; desires for greater fuel savings, was grounded for months because of unexplained blazes in two Japanese airlines&rsquo; 787 models.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/31/lobbying-muscle-and-green-agenda-blinded-boeing-reality">investigations</a> progressed in the first quarter of the year, it was <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-01-29/business/sns-rt-us-boeing-dreamliner-batterybre90t04f-20130129_1_battery-maker-ana-spokesman-ryosei-nomura-lithium-ion-batteries">revealed</a> that <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/all-nippon-airways">All Nippon Airways</a> replaced defective lithium ion batteries 10 times, <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/japan-air-lines">Japan Air Lines</a> replaced &ldquo;<a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/japan-air-lines">quite a few</a>,&rdquo; and <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/united-airlines">United Airlines</a> replaced &ldquo;<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57566772/united-airlines-japans-ana-replaced-787-batteries/">multiple batteries</a>,&rdquo; in the months preceding the smoke emergency that grounded their Dreamliners. Boeing had worked on the 787 for 10 years or so, with an ample amount of time to determine what kind of battery technology would be functional with the <a href="http://www.boeing.com/commercial/787family/background.html">&ldquo;super-efficient&rdquo; jet</a> with &ldquo;<a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/22/boeings-green-dreamliner-costing-company-and-customers-plenty">exceptional environmental performance</a>.&rdquo; Had the Chicago-based manufacturer &ndash;and its airline customers &ndash; concerned themselves more with achievable plans that built on proven fossil-fuel designs and economic sensibility rather than appeasement of environmental activists, and the accompanying millions of dollars in government subsidies for such, they might not be burning through millions of dollars in costs and lost productivity due to idle airplanes.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Fortunately no one was injured in the incidents. But investigators were ultimately confounded by the cause of the fires, and in <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/02/19/boeing-woes-balloon-battery-fix-remains-mystery">an effort</a> to &ldquo;get the planes flying passengers again,&rdquo; proposed a remedy that would include &ldquo;a heavy-duty titanium or steel containment box around the battery cells&rdquo; and high-pressure tubes to vent dangerous gases outside the fuselage in cases of &ldquo;thermal runaway,&rdquo; or fires. So ultimately safety regulators &ndash; and Boeing&rsquo;s engineers &ndash; <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/04/28/boeing-cause-dreamliner-fires-almost-doesnt-matter">decided it was sufficient to &ldquo;contain&rdquo; a fire</a>, not just to prevent one.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Even if we never know the root cause,&rdquo; top Boeing engineer Michael Sinnett <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/04/27/boeing-says-new-battery-system-ensures-787-dreamliner-safety/">told reporters</a>, &ldquo;the enclosure keeps the airplane safe, it eliminates the possibility of fire, it keeps heat out of the airplane, it keeps smoke out of the airplane, and it ensures that no matter what happens to the battery, regardless of root cause, the airplane is safe.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;In some ways it almost doesn&rsquo;t matter what the root cause was.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Federal Aviation Administration <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/04/28/boeing-cause-dreamliner-fires-almost-doesnt-matter">green-lighted</a> Boeing to move ahead with the solution in April, and the Dreamliner returned to the skies. But the decision was based on a puzzle that was never solved, and watchdogs like the Air Line Pilots Association &ndash; who said fires of any type were &ldquo;unacceptable&rdquo; &ndash; seem to have accepted it. But compare the decision to that of Boeing&rsquo;s competitor Airbus, who dumped the lithium ion battery for their competitor to the Dreamliner &ndash; the A350. The Paris-based manufacturer announced they would opt for nickel-cadmium battery systems instead, adding the weight equivalent of an adult male passenger.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paul Chesser is an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center and publishes </em><a href="http://www.carolinaplotthound.com/"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CarolinaPlottHound.com</em></a><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, an aggregator of North Carolina news.</em></p>A123 SystemsAll Nippon AirwaysApple IncBoeingCaliforniaChevy VoltChinaCorporate Integrity ProjectDepartment of EnergyDepartment of InteriorDreamlinerEcotalityelectric carelectric vehiclesElon MuskEPAErnest MonizFiskerFreedom of Information ActGeneral MotorsGovernment Integrity ProjectGregory FriedmanHouse Committee on Oversight and Government ReformJapan Air LinesJim JordanJohn ThuneJonathan SilverLG ChemLisa Jacksonlithium ion batteriesNHTSAPresident ObamaRecovery ActSmith Electric VehiclesSteven ChustimulusTeslaUnited AirlinesWanxiang GroupTue, 24 Dec 2013 17:11:14 +0000Paul Chesser4708 at http://nlpc.orgNHTSA to Investigate Tesla Fires as Battery Facts Remain Elusivehttp://nlpc.org/stories/2013/11/25/nhtsa-investigate-tesla-fires-battery-facts-remain-elusive
<p><img style="float: right;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/Tesla-fire.png" border="0" alt="Tesla fire" width="300" height="180" />After three recent fires, <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/tesla">Tesla Motors</a> CEO <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/people/elon-musk">Elon Musk</a> said he <a href="http://www.autoweek.com/article/20131119/CARNEWS/131119790">asked</a> the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to investigate its Model S.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">NHTSA said <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/20/business/us-safety-agency-opens-inquiry-into-tesla-fires.html?_r=0">no he didn&rsquo;t</a>.<!--break--></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Tesla has been saying it received the highest safety rating in the U.S., a &ldquo;new combined record of 5.4 stars.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">NHTSA says <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/23/5135258/nhtsa-tesla-star-safety-advertising-guidelines">there&rsquo;s no such thing</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Musk said he expects the investigation will clear Tesla after incidents in which metal objects struck the underside where the Model S battery is located.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">NHTSA says <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/11/22/tesla-ceo-expects-feds-to-clear-model-s-in-fires/3682245/">we&rsquo;ll see</a>, and a decision whether there should be a recall will likely take months. Maybe a lie detector test needs to be part of the study.</p>
<p>Musk thought he had averted scrutiny after the first fire in Washington state last month, when NHTSA <a href="http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1087934_nhtsa-no-further-probe-of-tesla-model-s-electric-car-fire">declined to investigate</a> the cause. Then another fire followed a collision in Mexico, and another blaze ignited in Tennessee a couple weeks ago after a Model S struck debris in the road (allegedly).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Musk doesn&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s fair that Tesla has received so much negative media attention when there are hundreds of fires every year in gasoline-powered vehicles.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Musk described the weeks since the fires as &lsquo;torture,&rsquo;&rdquo; the Associated Press <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/11/22/tesla-ceo-expects-feds-to-clear-model-s-in-fires/3682245/">reported Friday</a>. &ldquo;He said the crashes have received an unreasonable amount of media attention given that no one was injured and the passenger compartments remained intact. He understands that a new technology such as electric cars will get more scrutiny, &lsquo;but not to the insane degree that we&rsquo;re receiving.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The reason for the insanity &ndash; or, at least the reason there <em>should</em> be insanity &ndash; is the fact that Tesla is trying to build its business on the backs of taxpayers and government distortion of free markets, rather than on the merits of its automotive product. Sure, Musk had the company <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/09/04/critic-tesla-had-repay-its-dept-energy-loan-avoid-default">repay its $465 million loan</a> from the <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/department-energy">Department of Energy</a>&rsquo;s <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/stimulus">stimulus</a> stash, but as NLPC <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/08/09/government-gamed-markets-and-subsidies-give-tesla-another-profitable-quarter">has reported</a> Tesla has vacuumed up millions of dollars in California zero-emissions credits it has sold to other vehicle manufacturers. The company also enjoys advantages such as the buyer&rsquo;s federal tax credit for each vehicle, state tax credits and incentives, subsidies for battery manufacturers, and perks to offer buyers (who are <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/11/08/another-fire-quarterly-loss-calif-dependency-ominous-tesla">mostly rich Californians</a>) such as the use of high-occupancy highway lanes.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So for a company so dependent on a government that mandates your product and taxpayers who subsidize it, you can expect &ldquo;insane&rdquo; scrutiny when you hit some glitches. After all, Americans are coerced &ldquo;investors.&rdquo; In addition, <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/people/president-obama">President Obama</a>&rsquo;s new Energy Secretary <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/people/ernest-moniz">Ernest Moniz</a> has <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/08/29/new-energy-secretary-wants-waste-more-money-ev-loans">held up Tesla as a successful product</a> of DOE&rsquo;s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing loan program, and thus plans to revive the program that had received horrible publicity thanks to the failures of <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/vehicle-production-group">Vehicle Production Group</a> and <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/fisker">Fisker</a>. The future of DOE&rsquo;s electric vehicle &ldquo;investments&rdquo; has a lot to do with whether Tesla is viable or not.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But for all the brilliance and innovation that Musk has accumulated to his credit &ndash; leading tech pioneers such as Paypal and SpaceX &ndash; he obviously doesn&rsquo;t get that with public money comes extra accountability. He enjoyed the attention earlier this year when the accolades came one after another, such as &ldquo;<a href="http://www.triplepundit.com/2013/09/tesla-tops-ca-sales-rated-safest-car-all-time/">safest car of all time</a>&rdquo; and <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/consumer-reports">Consumer Reports</a>&rsquo; label as <a href="http://www.burlington-record.com/ci_23213566">(almost) &ldquo;the best car ever</a>.&rdquo; Wall Street pumped up the stock price near $200 with its <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/08/09/government-gamed-markets-and-subsidies-give-tesla-another-profitable-quarter">two (alleged) profitable quarters in a row</a> and <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013/08/26/teslas-market-cap-zooms-past-20-billion/">$20 billion market capitalization</a>. A seemingly lone voice &ndash; John Petersen of SeekingAlpha.com &ndash; sought to <a href="http://seekingalpha.com/article/1668242-why-tesla-had-to-repay-its-doe-loan">bring some sanity</a> to the overwrought hype about Tesla&rsquo;s value that even Musk has said was unjustified, and was promptly <a href="http://seekingalpha.com/article/1668242-why-tesla-had-to-repay-its-doe-loan#comments_header">hammered by critics</a> for his negativity.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A little over a month later came the first fire. It&rsquo;s been downhill since. The share price fell to $121.38 upon Friday&rsquo;s closing, and whereas Musk was happy to feed the positivity pump, he is dismayed at the attention now. Even when he tried to put a happy spin on the NHTSA investigation by saying Tesla asked for it, he was quickly refuted by the agency.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;The swift rebuttal of Mr. Musk underscores how Tesla&rsquo;s relentless promotional campaign is wearing thin on regulators charged with making the nation&rsquo;s vehicles and roadways safe,&rdquo; the <em>New York Times</em> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/20/business/us-safety-agency-opens-inquiry-into-tesla-fires.html?_r=0">reported</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Another reason to doubt Musk is the claim that the two Model S fires in the U.S. were caused by running over debris in the road. In Washington a &ldquo;large metallic object&rdquo; <a href="http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1087393_first-tesla-model-s-fire-caused-by-collision-with-road-debris">allegedly triggered the event</a>, and in Tennessee the culprit <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/11/10/tesla-fire-doesnt-faze-tennessee-owner.html">was said to be a trailer hitch</a>. The only problem is, while there have been plenty of photos distributed of the charred Model S&rsquo;s in the media and online, no pictures have been revealed of the alleged &ldquo;perpetrators&rdquo; (or &ldquo;penetrators&rdquo;): the &ldquo;debris.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;If that incident had occurred exactly as Tesla has theorized (near-instantaneous impalement of the battery pack by a 3&rdquo; diameter sharp metallic object), in my opinion the car would have been instantly disabled (no chance to keep driving for another 2 - 3 minutes to get off the main highway, park, and exit the vehicle without injury) and might even have detonated the battery pack&hellip;,&rdquo; wrote Lattice Energy&rsquo;s Lewis Larsen, a physicist who has been a <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/lewisglarsen/lattice-energy-llcwhy-has-tesla-model-s-had-more-thermal-runaways-than-nissan-leafnov-20-2013">frequent critic of companies</a> that depend on the viability of <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/lithium-ion">lithium ion batteries</a>, in an email.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Why hasn&rsquo;t Tesla held a news conference and Elon Musk conducted a public &lsquo;perp walk&rsquo; with the guilty piece of highway debris that they initially claimed had been recovered by a Washington Dept. of Transportation road crew that had been working in the area at the time of the incident?&rdquo; he added.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In both incidents Tesla released statements that emphasized the battery fires were not &ldquo;spontaneous,&rdquo; which speaks to the company&rsquo;s concern about the reputation for lithium ion technology&rsquo;s &ldquo;thermal runaway.&rdquo; Larsen said if Musk really wanted to debunk that suspicion, then he would have employed his massive resources to hold up the offending debris for the world to see. That didn&rsquo;t happen.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Unusual behavior and circumstances have surrounded fires that have occurred with electric vehicles and <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/dreamliner">Boeing</a>&rsquo;s lithium-ion battery-dependent <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/dreamliner">Dreamliner</a>. In the case of two <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/chevy-volt">Chevy Volt</a> residential garage fires in <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/connecticut">Connecticut</a> and <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/north-carolina">North Carolina</a>, <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/general-motors">General Motors</a> (as well as local officials and insurance companies) deployed teams that took over a year to investigate, only to <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/10/30/new-tesla-fires-old-volt-ones-explained-not-absolved">determine the cause of the fires were &ldquo;inconclusive.&rdquo;</a> In fires that involved the <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/fisker">Fisker</a> Karma, the company quickly emphasized their battery was not the cause and in the case of a Houston-area fire, <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/05/10/fisker-insinuates-customer-blame-karma-fire">suggested the vehicle owner might be to blame</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And with the case of the <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/22/boeings-green-dreamliner-costing-company-and-customers-plenty">broadly publicized Boeing 787 fires</a>, which shut down production of the newfangled airliner for months earlier this year, a company official <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/04/28/boeing-cause-dreamliner-fires-almost-doesnt-matter">concluded that it &ldquo;almost doesn&rsquo;t matter&rdquo;</a> what caused the fires as it announced a new &ldquo;fix&rdquo; for the undetermined problem.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Transparency, honesty and conclusive findings have been mostly absent from lithium ion battery incidents that affect the transportation sector. Taxpayers have been forced to heavily &ldquo;invest&rdquo; in this stuff and they deserve the truth.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em>Paul Chesser is an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center and publishes </em><a href="http://www.carolinaplotthound.com/"><em>CarolinaPlottHound.com</em></a><em>, an aggregator of North Carolina news.</em></p>BoeingChevy VoltConnecticutCorporate Integrity ProjectDepartment of EnergyDreamlinerelectric carelectric vehiclesElon MuskErnest MonizFiskerGeneral MotorsGovernment Integrity Projectlithium ionlithium ion batteriesNHTSANorth CarolinaPresident ObamastimulusTennesseeTeslaWashingtonMon, 25 Nov 2013 16:34:13 +0000Paul Chesser4678 at http://nlpc.orgNew Tesla Fires, Old Volt Ones Explained, Not Absolvedhttp://nlpc.org/stories/2013/10/30/new-tesla-fires-old-volt-ones-explained-not-absolved
<p><img style="float: right;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/Tesla-fire.png" border="0" alt="Tesla fire" width="300" height="180" /><a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/tesla">Tesla</a>&rsquo;s once-Teflon <del>Tony Stark</del> <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/people/elon-musk">Elon Musk</a>, the adored Paypal/<a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/spacex">SpaceX</a>/electric-car innovator who&rsquo;s been showered with unmitigated media praise and highly inflated stock values, has another lithium ion battery fire to explain.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This one happened <a href="http://jalopnik.com/another-tesla-model-s-caught-fire-after-a-crash-in-mexi-1453376349">after a Model S crash</a> in Mexico. The <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/10/04/tesla-fire-about-rushing-subsidizing-immature-technology-not-stock-price">last one</a> happened less than a month ago in Kent, Wash. Since then Tesla&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:TSLA">share price</a> has fallen from $193.90 on Sept. 30 to $160.58 this afternoon. The <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/09/04/critic-tesla-had-repay-its-dept-energy-loan-avoid-default">irrational exuberance</a> that made the electric automaker the darling of Wall Street has now become merely excitable, although still unjustifiably so. Even Musk himself told Bloomberg last week, &ldquo;The stock price that we have is more than we have any right to deserve.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--break--></p>
<p>While the <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/09/04/critic-tesla-had-repay-its-dept-energy-loan-avoid-default">fanboy fave</a> exhibited a measure of humility about Tesla&rsquo;s stock market prestige, the two fires have not moved the needle in that respect. The official stance the company took in both cases was, in essence, &ldquo;we are glad the drivers did not die. Our safety features had a lot to do with that.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It&rsquo;s become obvious that nothing riles the nerves of top executives in the electric vehicle industry as much as <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/lithium-ion">lithium ion battery</a> fires do. When <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/fisker">Fisker Automotive</a> faced similar incidents in <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/05/10/fisker-insinuates-customer-blame-karma-fire">Texas</a> and <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/08/13/new-fisker-fire-while-taxpayers-cover-utility-bills-empty-plant">California</a> last year, the corporate spin emphasized how many miles its electric Karmas had traveled without such incidents, that fires happen in gas-powered cars too, and that nobody was hurt. Your garage may have burned down, but hey, at least you don&rsquo;t have any hospital bills!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the case of <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/general-motors">General Motors</a> and fires in its <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/chevy-volt">Chevy Volt</a>, both corporate and governmental authorities that have advocated electric vehicle adoption exhibited skittish behavior after such incidents. As NLPC colleague Mark Modica <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/12/08/media-suppressing-story-nhtsa%E2%80%99s-suppression-chevy-volt-fire">reported two years ago</a>, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/12/07/congress-investigating-nhtsa-chevy-volt-report-delay">waited six months</a> to notify the public of a Chevy Volt that burst into flames three weeks after it was crash-tested. And in separate residential garage fires in Connecticut and North Carolina that involved Volts, GM <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/11/06/chevy-volt-again-suspected-house-fire">deployed its own rapid responders</a> to investigate. Then&hellip;no conclusive findings from the investigations were reported afterward. Were the Volts the cause, or not?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In Barkhamsted, Conn., authorities ultimately <a href="http://www.gminsidenews.com/forums/f13/unofficially-official-volt-cleared-connecticut-fire-103059/">cleared</a> the homeowner&rsquo;s Volt as the cause of the fire. Storm Connors, who also owned a Suzuki Samarai that he converted to electric as well, said a number of items could have been the culprit (electrical wiring, candles, discarded ashes, and oily rags were also in the garage).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;The Volt was ruled out as the cause both in the post-fire investigation and by the first responding firemen who observed the fire more intense on the left side of the garage -- the Volt being on the right,&rdquo; Mr. Connors told NLPC in an email. &ldquo;The investigators also did a thorough evaluation of the charging system for the Suzuki electric conversion and found no evidence of an electrical problem. No cause was officially determined. I do have my suspicions as to the cause, but I don't think exposing my guesses would serve any purpose. For the record, I did purchase a replacement Volt which I keep in the rebuilt garage.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The cause of the Nov. 2011 North Carolina garage fire was also a mystery, although Iredell Co. fire marshal Garland Cloer <a href="http://gm-volt.com/2011/11/15/chevy-volt-was-not-the-source-of-nc-house-fire/">early-on said the Volt was unlikely the cause</a>, based on his experience &ndash; not scientific observation. Nevertheless the incident was the subject of numerous studies that involved dozens of investigators from GM and various agencies and insurers. Over the past 20 months NLPC has periodically checked with Mr. Cloer about the findings, and finally last month he said via email the NC fire&rsquo;s cause was also inconclusive:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;After a year of numerous joint investigations by electrical, mechanical engineers and fire investigators; we could not produce conclusive results as to the cause of the fire. Erie Insurance spent thousands of dollars on evidence storage and examination including x-raying approximately one hundred and fifty (150) forty-five (45) gallon plastic totes of fire debris from the garage floor. Any unexplained items and all electrical components in the totes were examined by hand for unusual activity.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;We modeled a potential scenario involving a charging system from a large hobby helicopter. The homeowner had connected a charging system with lithium-polymer batteries to the primary battery of a Nissan Armada, which was parked beside the Volt. The charging system connections were too short to reach the garage floor, so the homeowner pulled a fifty-five (55) plastic gallon trash can in front of the Nissan and placed the charger on the container. During the day of the fire, the homeowner removed and replaced an old set of box springs and mattress from a bonus room above the garage and placed the old sleep set in the garage in front of the Volt. The old set was to be disposed of the next day.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;A timeline of the events and data received from various sources including the Volt charging system and the Volt&rsquo;s VICM &lsquo;black box&rsquo; indicated that from the time the helicopter charging system was connected to the Nissan and the fire was visible and noticed by the neighbors there was sufficient enough time for the fire to start. Our unconfirmed theory was the that the helicopter charging system batteries failed and began to burn, igniting the plastic trash can and in turn the radiant heat from the trash can ignited the mattress and box spring which then ignited the surrounding combustibles in the garage.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;The helicopter charging system was in the Area of Origin of the fire, along with the Volt charging system and a central vacuum system (the plastic waste container mentioned above which was the dust storage for that vacuum system) and other components. This scenario was electronically modeled by one the private fire investigators and each time the model indicated that there was enough heat generation to cause complete destruction of the garage and its contents.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;The helicopter and charging system were purchased on line and assembled by the homeowner. After a long search, we were unable recreate the event because we could not locate a similar helicopter or charging system since the original devices were manufactured in China.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;This case has been closed by investigators and is ruled as &lsquo;Undetermined.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For an outside opinion, NLPC turned <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/08/07/technical-glitches-and-payments-down-time-still-nag-boeings-dreamliner">again</a> to Lewis Larsen of Chicago-based Lattice Energy, LLC, an expert who has examined and researched &ldquo;thermal runaways&rdquo; in advanced batteries used in many different functions, but especially in electric vehicles and in <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/boeing">Boeing</a>&rsquo;s new (and troubled) <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/dreamliner">Dreamliner</a> jumbo jets. While he agreed the Volt might deserve to be absolved of blame in the North Carolina fire, he said lithium-based batteries do not:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;My personal opinion is that a battery runaway fire was absolutely the most likely proximate cause of the fire that destroyed the garage and contents,&rdquo; Larsen told NLPC.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;As to whether it was the Chevy Volt battery pack or the lithium-polymer battery pack of the made-in-China model helicopter that was being charged, I would agree with Mr. Cloer that a thermal runaway of the helicopter battery pack that was being charged while resting on top of a 55 gallon plastic garbage can best fits the facts of the case. Of course, this does not prove that it WASN&rsquo;T the Volt that did the deed, but it&rsquo;s very likely that the Volt was innocent in this particular case&hellip;.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Low-end (as was probably used in the &lsquo;large model helicopter&rsquo;) inexpensive lithium-based batteries from China have had really bad safety records with respect to the frequency of thermal runaways,&rdquo; he added.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The bottom line is that lithium-ion batteries, cheap or expensive, are susceptible to thermal runaways (i.e., &ldquo;fires&rdquo;) and are still deep in the trial stage when it comes to transportation functions such as automotive and aviation travel. Taxpayers, via the Obama administration&rsquo;s &ldquo;green&rdquo; stimulus and other government tax breaks and subsidies, have been put on the hook to the tune of billions of dollars for the privilege of such experimentation.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Advocates like Elon Musk point to the Tesla incidents and say &ldquo;a big chunk of metal&rdquo; (Washington) or &ldquo;big collision&rdquo; (Mexico) caused the fires, and that gas-powered vehicles might have caught fire too. The difference with electric cars is that the lithium-ion batteries are enormous, and when they undergo stress, the heat from their fires burns extremely hot, and traditional suppressants do not work on them.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Back when he was flying high, Musk felt so good about himself that <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/02/11/taxpayer-millions-lithium-ion-and-rich-people-just-dont-mix-well">he intruded into Boeing&rsquo;s business</a> by offering help with the disastrous Dreamliner shutdown earlier this year. Calling Boeing&rsquo;s lithium ion battery packs &ldquo;inherently unsafe,&rdquo; he boasted that neither Tesla or SpaceX ever had fires, despite &ldquo;fly(ing) high-capacity lithium-ion battery packs in our rockets and spacecraft, which are subject to much higher loads than commercial aircraft and have to function all the way from sea level air pressure to vacuum.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Two Model S fires in less than a month have knocked Musk down to earth, while Tesla&rsquo;s stock has been brought back into this planet&rsquo;s atmosphere. Despite the Volt findings and the Tesla causes, all is not right in the electric transportation sector and taxpayers ought not to be forced into financing the speculation.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paul Chesser is an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center and publishes </em><a href="http://www.carolinaplotthound.com/"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CarolinaPlottHound.com</em></a><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, an aggregator of North Carolina news.</em></p>BoeingCaliforniaChevy VoltConnecticutCorporate Integrity ProjectDreamlinerelectric carelectric vehiclesElon MuskFiskerGeneral MotorsGovernment Integrity Projectlithium ionlithium ion batteriesNorth CarolinaPresident ObamastimulusTeslaTexasWed, 30 Oct 2013 18:22:41 +0000Paul Chesser4651 at http://nlpc.orgTesla Fire is About Rushing, Subsidizing Immature Technology, Not Stock Pricehttp://nlpc.org/stories/2013/10/04/tesla-fire-about-rushing-subsidizing-immature-technology-not-stock-price
<p><img style="float: right;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/Tesla-fire.png" border="0" alt="Tesla fire" width="300" height="180" />A <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/10/03/fiery_collision_very_bad_for_tesla%E2%80%99s_safest_car_image/">fire</a> (screen capture from Jalopnik.com) that torched a Model S from the formerly Teflon <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/tesla">Tesla Motors</a> on Tuesday blackened its front end, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/02/news/companies/tesla-stock-fire-crash/index.html?hpt=hp_t3">lowered its stock price</a>, and (further) revealed a corporate arrogance not seen since <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/fisker">Fisker</a> Karmas were alight.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But CEO <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/people/elon-musk">Elon Musk</a> saw to it that taxpayers were <a href="http://energy.gov/articles/moniz-tesla-repayment-shows-strength-energy-department-s-overall-loan-portfolio">fully paid back</a> their $465 million <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/department-energy">Department of Energy</a> loan, so as watchdogs over the public purse we can forget all about it and just go on about our business &ndash; right?<!--break--></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Wrong. The incident near Seattle still should be of great concern because Tesla still heavily depends on tax breaks (like the consumer&rsquo;s $7,500 federal credit) and the sale of emissions credits (mainly from California) to partially subsidize the costs of their electric cars. Moreover, the government has invested billions of dollars in the research and development of new battery technology, all in the name of energy efficiency in order to save the world from <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/global-warming">global warming</a>. Those based on <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/lithium-ion">lithium</a> have gone up in flames in <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/22/boeings-green-dreamliner-costing-company-and-customers-plenty">planes</a>, <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/27/boeing-battery-quick-fix-may-be-elusive">plants</a> and <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/05/10/fisker-insinuates-customer-blame-karma-fire">automobiles</a>.</p>
<p>One of these days there<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>will be a fatality, but until then manufacturers dismiss the incidents. The statement Tesla issued about the fire in Kent, Wash. was matter-of-fact and lacked any expression of concern for the vehicle&rsquo;s owner.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Yesterday, a Model S collided with a large metallic object in the middle of the road, causing significant damage to the vehicle,&rdquo; the company response said. &ldquo;The car&rsquo;s alert system signaled a problem and instructed the driver to pull over safely, which he did. No one was injured, and the sole occupant had sufficient time to exit the vehicle safely and call the authorities. Subsequently, a fire caused by the substantial damage sustained during the collision was contained to the front of the vehicle thanks to the design and construction of the vehicle and battery pack. All indications are that the fire never entered the interior cabin of the car. It was extinguished on-site by the fire department.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It almost sounds like Tesla wants an &ldquo;attaboy&rdquo; for the brilliance of its safety features and battery design, rather than express how grateful that the driver was not hurt. Whether there actually was a &ldquo;large&rdquo; chunk of metal that was struck still isn&rsquo;t clear from the evidence, but if there was, it&rsquo;s not a reason for Tesla to be absolved of responsibility. After all, debris is struck in roadways regularly around the country and it doesn&rsquo;t cause episodes like this. What, for instance, if the Model S had actually collided with an object in the road and it rendered the driver unconscious? Then we&rsquo;d be talking about a much different result.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Back when Fisker Automotive was still alive and <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/09/26/consumer-reports-fisker-karma-worst-luxury-sedan">stumbling</a>, their public relations department <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/05/10/fisker-insinuates-customer-blame-karma-fire">handled mishaps in a similar fashion</a>. In May 2012 a Fort Bend County, Texas fire marshal attributed a garage blaze to the homeowner&rsquo;s Fisker Karma, which he had parked shortly before he started smelling burning rubber and discovered the fire. Nevertheless Fisker issued a statement that said, &ldquo;As of now, multiple insurance investigators are involved, and we have not ruled out possible fraud or malicious intent. Based on initial observations and inspections, the Karma&rsquo;s lithium ion battery pack was not being charged at the time and is still intact and does not appear to have been a contributing factor in this incident.&rdquo; The owner was not pleased by the challenge to his integrity.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And after a California <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/08/13/new-fisker-fire-while-taxpayers-cover-utility-bills-empty-plant">Karma fire in August last year</a>, the company <a href="http://www.wired.com/autopia/2012/08/fisker-karma-fire-part-deux/">said</a>, &ldquo;We have more than 1,000 Karmas on the road with a cumulative 2 million miles on them. There are more than 185,000 highway vehicle fires in the US every year&hellip;No injuries were reported; the vehicle was parked; and the fire was extinguished safely by the emergency services.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The arrogance isn&rsquo;t limited to the automotive realm. In April this year <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/boeing">Boeing</a>, after a series of &ldquo;thermal runaway&rdquo; incidents on its lithium-ion battery-powered <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/dreamliner">Dreamliner</a>, officials announced they gave up trying when it couldn&rsquo;t find the source of the problem. Instead the manufacturer said they came up with a solution that would both contain a potential fire and vent its heat outside the airplane if another fire happened.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;In some ways it almost doesn&rsquo;t matter what the root cause was,&rdquo; <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/04/27/boeing-says-new-battery-system-ensures-787-dreamliner-safety/">said</a> Michael Sinnett, Boeing&rsquo;s top engineer.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Undoubtedly there are a lot of very smart people who have worked very hard on developing these new technologies. But likewise there have been equally brilliant individuals warning these engineers and entrepreneurs that they are dealing with dangerous materials and chemistry, and that just because someone hasn&rsquo;t been hurt yet, doesn&rsquo;t mean it can&rsquo;t happen.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lewis Larsen of Chicago-based Lattice Energy LLC has <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/lewisglarsen/lattice-energy-llcon-oct-1-tesla-model-s-caught-fire-on-highwayhas-companys-luck-run-outoct-3-2013">consistently called attention</a> to the problems with lithium ion technologies and their tendencies to thermally run away &ndash; or, in other words, burn uncontrollably. The practicality problem (other than their immense cost) with the batteries is that when they experience stress &ndash; for any number of reasons &ndash; it&rsquo;s almost like unleashing hell.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;&hellip;A battery cell&rsquo;s electrochemical reactions can suddenly start running at greatly elevated rates that create more process heat than normal thermal dissipative mechanisms can easily handle,&rdquo; Larsen wrote, &ldquo;which then starts raising the temperature of battery cell contents out beyond their ideal safe operating range&hellip;(eventually) a dangerous feedback loop is created&hellip;thermal runaways are thus born&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For many &ndash; perhaps most &ndash; people that isn&rsquo;t the kind of risk you want in your &ldquo;mobile platform,&rdquo; as Larsen put it. But rather than emphasize those challenges, most of the media coverage has <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-models-fire-shares-20131003,0,5720020.story">emphasized</a> what the incident has <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=newssearch&amp;cd=97&amp;cad=rja&amp;ved=0CEIQqQIoADAGOFo&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ibtimes.com%2Ftesla-motors-inc-tsla-ceo-elon-musk-has-lost-nearly-600m-wealth-model-s-sedan-fire-got-worse-when&amp;ei=gqpOUvHwB5K44AOxjoHICw&amp;usg=AFQjCNF7HJeM-Kko-dy5MUFmU72-K2oyKQ&amp;sig2=4ge7UEp6ggin49ne3vnzFg&amp;bvm=bv.53537100,d.dmg">done</a> to <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/02/news/companies/tesla-stock-fire-crash/index.html?hpt=hp_t3">Tesla&rsquo;s stock price</a>, which <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/09/04/critic-tesla-had-repay-its-dept-energy-loan-avoid-default">irrationally</a> <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=TSLA">skyrocketed upward</a> this year.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Part of the bombastic investor enthusiasm stemmed from other superlatives bestowed upon the Model S, such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration&rsquo;s <a href="http://www.triplepundit.com/2013/09/tesla-tops-ca-sales-rated-safest-car-all-time/">top score of five stars</a>, which spurred Musk to make sure the media was told the car scored even higher on some safety aspects. And then in May Consumer Reports&rsquo; announced the Model S scored 99 out of 100 &ndash; <a href="http://www.burlington-record.com/ci_23213566">almost perfect</a>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It was all too much too soon for the electric car with a minimal track record. The doubts and questions about lithium ion batteries used in vehicles and planes &ndash; and the massive taxpayer subsidization of them &ndash; are still valid.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paul Chesser is an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center and publishes </em><a href="http://www.carolinaplotthound.com/"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CarolinaPlottHound.com</em></a><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, an aggregator of North Carolina news.</em></p>BoeingCaliforniaConsumer ReportsCorporate Integrity ProjectDepartment of EnergyDreamlinerElon MuskFiskerGovernment Integrity Projectlithium ion batteriesTeslaFri, 04 Oct 2013 12:41:03 +0000Paul Chesser4629 at http://nlpc.orgTechnical Glitches and Payments for Down Time Still Nag Boeing's Dreamlinerhttp://nlpc.org/stories/2013/08/07/technical-glitches-and-payments-down-time-still-nag-boeings-dreamliner
<p><img style="float: right; border: 0pt none;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/boeing-787-dreamliner1_0.jpg" border="0" alt="Boeing 787 Dreamliner" width="200" height="157" />Another fire, another mysterious technical glitch, and happy-go-lucky <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/boeing">Boeing</a> skips along enjoying strong sales, revenues and profits, despite the shadow of uncertainty that hangs over the <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/lithium-ion-batteries">lithium battery</a>-charged <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/dreamliner">Dreamliner</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The wide-bodied 787, following two fires on Japanese airliners in January that grounded them for months, experienced <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/12/world/europe/uk-heathrow-airplane-fire/">another blaze on July 12</a> at Heathrow Airport in London. This time the victim was Boeing customer Ethiopian Airlines, whose Dreamliner had a hole burned through the roof of the fuselage in front of the tail. The cause was attributed to an Emergency Locator Transmitter manufactured by Honeywell International, which contains a lithium manganese-dioxide battery &ndash; more about that later.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--break--></p>
<p>But the monster-sized lithium ion batteries that caused the January fires were cleared. Still, the Dreamliner has not been without its incidents this summer, which were <a href="http://www.petergreenberg.com/2013/08/04/boeing-787-dreamliner-a-timeline-of-the-latest-incidents/">spelled out earlier this week</a> by travel writer Peter Greenberg. And another issue lingers from the months of inactivity caused by the 787 fires: compensation for Boeing&rsquo;s airline customers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">CEO James McNerney informed shareholders in an earnings conference call at the end of July that the company had made good on all outstanding claims of losses related to the 787&rsquo;s grounding.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;There were some instances where we had obligations to customers, and those have all been satisfied,&rdquo; McNerney told investors and reporters during the July 24 call. &ldquo;&hellip;We think they are all behind us now.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But at least one Boeing customer is not satisfied: LOT Polish Airlines, the first European recipient of the Dreamliner. In an interview <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-07-30/disgruntled-airline-speaks-up-about-boeing-787-payout">with Bloomberg</a>, spokesman Robert Moren said, &ldquo;In fact we were not satisfied at all financially. Those [costs] are not probably gigantic money for Boeing, but for us&mdash;while we are in the process of restructuring&mdash;it&rsquo;s quite substantial.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The dispute still lingers, and LOT&rsquo;s top executive is beginning to sound bitter.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;We are demanding specific sums from Boeing that we have been able to calculate,&rdquo; said LOT CEO Sebastian Mikosz <a href="http://www.wbj.pl/article-63436-lot-denies-receiving-compensation-from-boeing-mulls-legal-action.html">to the <em>Warsaw Business Journal</em></a>. &ldquo;Unfortunately, it is not possible to estimate all the damage to our company&rsquo;s image caused by the loss of credibility with some of our customers.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The <em>Journal</em> reported that, based on other media reports, that LOT sought $31.6 million (converted from Polish Zloty) from Boeing. In addition, the airline has had to <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/sns-rt-boeing-dreamliner-lot-20130807,0,1640750.story">cancel several flights</a> due to other technical problems recently. Mikosz said he had not ruled out the possibility of going to court, but preferred to reach an agreement outside of legal action.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Whether Boeing is willing to shell out restitution of more than a nominal level is unknown, but Bloomberg <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-07-30/disgruntled-airline-speaks-up-about-boeing-787-payout">recalled an instance early in 2012</a> when &ndash; after 787 orders for Air India were delayed &ndash; the Indian government announced that Boeing agreed to pay a half-billion dollars to make good. That was quickly refuted.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t comment on deals that we&rsquo;ve done, but I can tell you that we&rsquo;re not writing anybody a check for $500 million,&rdquo; said Jim Allbaugh, then-president of Boeing&rsquo;s commercial airplanes unit.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Bloomberg went on to explain that remuneration in jet delivery delays often takes the form of breaks on future aircraft deals such as discounts or friendlier financing terms. But early in the year when the 787 was grounded, Reuters estimated that Japan&rsquo;s All Nippon Airways lost as much as $1.1 million a day due to the inactivity. If true, that&rsquo;s a lot to make up with interest rates and other perks. At least Boeing is comfortable with its earnings enough that it believes it can honestly tell investors that its atonement efforts won&rsquo;t hammer the <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/blog/morning-edition/2013/08/dreamliner-troubles-havent-hurt.html">stock price</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But whether Boeing should remain comfortable about measures it has taken to alleviate concern about new battery technology on the Dreamliner is another question. NLPC has reported about the challenges both <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/02/19/boeing-woes-balloon-battery-fix-remains-mystery">before</a> and <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/05/29/dreamliner-flies-doubts-persist-about-boeings-batteries">after</a> the Chicago-based manufacturer announced it had rectified the problems caused by its lithium ion batteries, despite the company not knowing what caused the fires last winter. The current &ldquo;solution&rdquo; is to make sure any &ldquo;thermal runaway&rdquo; event is contained within a stainless steel box and vented outside the airliner so as to not endanger passengers and crew. The only problem, as at least one scientist has explained, is that fires caused by the batteries often burn so hot as to melt stainless steel.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That scientist, Lewis Larsen of Chicago-based Lattice Energy, is particularly fascinated by the behavior of electric arcs. His analysis of the original fires in January appeared to be dead-on, with the explanation that nanoscale steel orbs that were discovered afterward were evidence that stainless steel &ldquo;hotspots&rdquo; were created in the battery casing, which caused melting and then reformed as spheres when they cooled.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Larsen also appears to be on to something about the Honeywell locator transmitter incident on the Ethiopian Airlines&rsquo; 787 last month in London. As he <a href="http://christinenegroni.blogspot.com/2013/07/ethiopian-787-fire-sparks-question-is.html">explained to aviation journalist</a> Christine Negroni, the non-rechargeable battery inside the beacon is also lithium-based, and while not as susceptible to thermal events as the rechargeable lithium-ions, they still can fail &ldquo;with catastrophic consequences.&rdquo; In communication with NLPC, Larsen called attention to a recently released report from the General Civil Aviation Authority of the United Arab Emirates, which investigated a Boeing 747 fire and crash in Dubai in 2010. Among its findings were that vibration could cause problems with the batteries.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Given the active failure modes of lithium batteries,&rdquo; the report said, &ldquo;the battery risk factors concerning possible susceptibility to various extraneous forms of mechanical energy, for example vibration, possibly in a harmonic form, could be an initiating action risk.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Negroni noted that while the Honeywell transponders have had a good record on aluminum airplanes, the 787&rsquo;s carbon fiber composite body may be the difference with its battery. Larsen told her that vibrations caused by endless movement around the airport could be factors with a sitting Dreamliner, as the Ethiopian airliner was for eight hours.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;The plane is sitting on the ground, other planes are going around,&rdquo; Larsen told Negroni. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s all sorts of acoustic stuff in the air, the plane is like a big tuning fork.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Whatever the cause, electrical problems continue to nag Boeing and its airline customers. Since the Heathrow episode there have been more flare-ups with panels and emergency locator transmitters, as Peter Greenberg has <a href="http://www.petergreenberg.com/2013/08/04/boeing-787-dreamliner-a-timeline-of-the-latest-incidents/">listed</a>. A July 26<sup>th</sup> Reuters <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/business/more-dreamliner-ills-smoke-one-another-grounded-6C10761188">report</a> showed Boeing spokesmen were mute about the subsequent problems.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It seems Boeing is trying to maintain a delicate balance between the prevention of two potentially explosive events: another actual thermal runaway or hints that might incite an unmerited media firestorm.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em>Paul Chesser is an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center and publishes </em><a href="http://www.carolinaplotthound.com/"><em>CarolinaPlottHound.com</em></a><em>, an aggregator of North Carolina news.</em></p>All Nippon AirwaysBoeingCorporate Integrity ProjectDreamlinerEthiopian AirlinesHoneywellJames McNerneylithium ionlithium ion batteriesThu, 08 Aug 2013 12:30:30 +0000Paul Chesser4558 at http://nlpc.orgDreamliner Flies, But Doubts Persist About Boeing's Batterieshttp://nlpc.org/stories/2013/05/29/dreamliner-flies-doubts-persist-about-boeings-batteries
<p><img style="float: right;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/2013-01-23T021450Z_1_CBRE90M069R00_RTROPTP_2_BOEING-787-FAA.JPG" border="0" alt="battery photo" width="300" height="200" />Now that <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/boeing">Boeing</a> has placed most of its 787s back into service, including those in <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/united-airlines">United Airlines</a>&rsquo; fleet, executives with both corporations are <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_23292052/united-restarts-787-dreamliner-flights-after-grounding">putting a happy face</a> on the expensive hardship that was caused by the four-month grounding of the planes due to fire hazard risks.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">United reinstated the so-called <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/dreamliner">Dreamliners</a> on May 20, when United CEO Jeff Smisek and Boeing CEO Jim McNerney hopped a flight from Houston to Chicago to show the troubles with the plane&rsquo;s <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/lithium-ion-batteries">lithium ion batteries</a> were behind them.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--break--></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">"I&rsquo;ll tell you, Jim,&rdquo; said Smisek, as recounted by the Associated Press, &ldquo;it was a fairly expensive piece of sculpture to have on the ground, so we&rsquo;re really delighted to have it up and flying.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That&rsquo;s not to say the Dreamliners are fixed. As NLPC <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/04/28/boeing-cause-dreamliner-fires-almost-doesnt-matter">reported last month</a>, Boeing&rsquo;s engineers don&rsquo;t know what caused the fires in the first place, thus they can&rsquo;t be sure they are repaired. Boeing&rsquo;s top engineer Michael Sinnett said a reconfiguration of the enormous batteries is designed to prevent fires. Even if a blaze erupts, a casing around the battery will protect passengers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Even if we never know the root cause,&rdquo; Sinnett <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/04/27/boeing-says-new-battery-system-ensures-787-dreamliner-safety/">told reporters in Tokyo</a>, &ldquo;the enclosure keeps the airplane safe, it eliminates the possibility of fire, it keeps heat out of the airplane, it keeps smoke out of the airplane, and it ensures that no matter what happens to the battery, regardless of root cause, the airplane is safe.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;In some ways it almost doesn&rsquo;t matter what the root cause was.&rdquo;&nbsp;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Besides United (the only U.S. carrier with 787s in its fleet &ndash; six of them), airlines in India, Ethiopia and Qatar have resumed flights with the <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/22/boeings-green-dreamliner-costing-company-and-customers-plenty">&ldquo;green&rdquo; plane</a> that is equipped with the new battery technology that tends to overheat and combust. But not everyone is convinced that Boeing has sufficiently addressed the <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/27/boeing-battery-quick-fix-may-be-elusive">problems</a> that caused a fire aboard an empty <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/japan-air-lines">Japan Air Lines</a> Dreamliner in Boston, or produced a burning smell on an <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/all-nippon-airways">All Nippon Airways</a> 787 that spurred an emergency landing in Japan. Understandably it&rsquo;s the Air Lines Pilots Association of Japan, which <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/05/28/business/japanese-pilots-tell-boeing-to-disclose-more-on-dreamliner-cures/#.UaUFb5WkB80">held a press conference on Monday</a>, that has publicly demanded a better response from Boeing than &ldquo;we have it contained&rdquo; and &ldquo;it doesn&rsquo;t matter&rdquo; what caused the fires.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Frankly, we do not have enough information that enables us to declare whether we are for or against the resumption&rdquo; of 787 flights, said Hiroaki Tateno, president of the association and a captain for Japan Air Lines.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">According to a report in <em>The Japan Times</em>, the association is concerned that they have been provided no detailed information about how Boeing resolved the issues, nor have they been told what the investigation into the problem revealed. The pilots&rsquo; group says Boeing is now downplaying the importance of the batteries to the 787&rsquo;s function. The association is &ldquo;concerned about whether there will really be no adverse impact on other systems of the airplane if the battery goes wrong,&rdquo; said the technical adviser to the pilots&rsquo; group.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">All Nippon <a href="http://india.nydailynews.com/business/d3be0365fe2f6afb346707a8215817b3/japans-ana-resumes-dreamliner-flights">restarted its Dreamliner flights</a> on Sunday, despite the pilots&rsquo; concerns. Besides the mystery that surrounds the investigation and &ldquo;fix,&rdquo; battery experts interviewed by Barron&rsquo;s late last month <a href="http://www.aviationweek.com/Portals/AWeek/TWW/Laing%20Jonathan%20R-Barrons%20Magazine-Will%20Boeings%20Battery%20Fix%20Fly-April%2027%202013.pdf">expressed skepticism</a> about the solution that Boeing has implemented for the Dreamliner.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;I&rsquo;m shocked that Boeing was willing to stake its reputation on these batteries. Even with the modifications, the individual cells of the battery are crammed too closely together and feature an internal chemistry that&rsquo;s far too volatile,&rdquo; said Elton Cairns, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory professor and battery technology expert.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Using these batteries in planes makes no sense, with all the lives potentially at stake. These batteries are unpredictable and prone to thermal runaway and fires,&rdquo; said Michel Armand, a professor of chemistry at the University of Picardie in France.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Another scientist, physicist Lewis Larsen of Chicago-based Lattice Energy, has studied the <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/national-transportation-safety-board">National Transportation Safety Board</a>&rsquo;s investigative data on the Japan Air Lines incident at Logan Airport in Boston, even creating a <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/lewisglarsen/lattice-energy-llc-technical-discussionntsb-logan-dreamliner-runaway-data-suggest-high-local-tempsmay-7-2013">PowerPoint presentation of his analysis</a>. More technical explanations can be reviewed at the link and also in the Barron&rsquo;s article, but the essence of Larsen&rsquo;s review is that debris from the &ldquo;thermal runaway&rdquo; event included &ldquo;perfect nanoscale steel spheres.&rdquo; Larsen explained that the presence of those spheres are evidence that stainless steel &ldquo;hotspots&rdquo; in the battery casing, which were exposed to the internal shorts that created arc discharges, reached temperatures far higher than Boeing engineers likely contemplated.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;These local areas got all the way up to the boiling point of stainless (steel) (&gt; 3,000 degrees Centigrade),&rdquo; Larsen wrote, &ldquo;were turned into a gaseous vapor (expanding in volume by &gt;50,000 x in the process of vaporizing); solid steel then re-condensed from hot metallic vapor in the form of perfect nanoscale steel spheres as portions of the super-hot metallic Fe-alloy vapor quench-cooled&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He gets even more technical, but the upshot is that Larsen says the extreme heat was not containable, and it could happen again, despite what Boeing says about its solution to the problem.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;The brutal incontestable facts are that Boeing has publicly admitted that it has no clue what caused the thermal runaways in the first place,&rdquo; Larsen wrote in an email exchange with NLPC. &ldquo;&hellip;Some small portions of the Logan battery conflagration got as hot as thousands of degrees while it was incinerating itself, which is a much higher peak temperature than Boeing has been willing to concede to outsiders.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Worse yet, it is also abundantly obvious from the NTSB&rsquo;s battery post-mortem investigation that whatever happened inside the dying GS Yuasa (the Japanese manufacturer) battery was more than hot enough to melt stainless steel with ease.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Perhaps the most damning fact about Boeing&rsquo;s &ldquo;fix?&rdquo; The containment box it created to protect the Dreamliner and its passengers is made out of&hellip;stainless steel.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Larsen isn&rsquo;t some fringe scientist with a crazy theory. No one has publicly disputed his conclusions, and many authorities on battery technology have agreed with him. He explained that most chemists who work on batteries don&rsquo;t usually spend any time studying the &ldquo;amazing properties&rdquo; of electric arcs (or arc discharges &ndash; lightning is an example of an electric arc).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As the Barron&rsquo;s article pointed out, Boeing&rsquo;s main competitor, France-based EADS, which makes <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/airbus">Airbus</a> models, decided that continuing with lithium ion batteries in its A350 line was too risky and replaced them with more traditional nickel-cadmium batteries. The business publication also reminded readers of two incidents in recent years in which 747 cargo planes carrying pallets of lithium-ion batteries crashed, killing the crews of both. Barron&rsquo;s reported that the U.S. government forbids the transport of lithium-ion cargo on passenger planes flying over the country. So there is practical, as well as technical, confirmation of what Larsen is preaching.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As NLPC reported in recent months, Boeing keeps making decisions that don&rsquo;t inspire confidence. The company stubbornly bulled ahead with lithium ion batteries that <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/22/boeings-green-dreamliner-costing-company-and-customers-plenty">power far more functions on a plane than batteries ever had in the past</a>, all in the name of making the Dreamliner lightweight and &ldquo;green.&rdquo; Ten-plus years of extensive research and testing did not prevent the flame-ups on the Japanese airlines and other similar incidents. And Boeing&rsquo;s <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/31/lobbying-muscle-and-green-agenda-blinded-boeing-reality">focus on lobbying</a> for favorable government treatment, contracts and incentives appeared to supersede its responsibility to produce airplane technology that actually works and is safe.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The attitude that fires can be &ldquo;contained&rdquo; and that &ldquo;it doesn&rsquo;t matter&rdquo; what caused the previous ones smacks of arrogance. Clearly there are plenty of smart people who are still skeptical. Since regulators have green-lighted the Dreamliner, all we can hope is that Boeing&rsquo;s pride doesn&rsquo;t cost any lives.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>NOTE: The original version of this article had Mr. Larsen's name misspelled -- apologies to him -- and GS Yuasa is a Japanese company, not Korean.</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em>Paul Chesser is an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center and publishes </em><a href="http://www.carolinaplotthound.com/"><em>CarolinaPlottHound.com</em></a><em>, an aggregator of North Carolina news.</em></p>AirbusAll Nippon AirwaysBoeingCorporate Integrity ProjectDreamlinerGovernment Integrity ProjectJapan Air Lineslithium ionlithium ion batteriesNational Transportation Safety BoardUnited AirlinesWed, 29 May 2013 14:43:32 +0000Paul Chesser4486 at http://nlpc.orgBoeing: Cause of Dreamliner Fires 'Almost Doesn't Matter'http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/04/28/boeing-cause-dreamliner-fires-almost-doesnt-matter
<p><img style="float: right;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/2013-01-23T021450Z_1_CBRE90M069R00_RTROPTP_2_BOEING-787-FAA.JPG" border="0" alt="battery photo" width="300" height="200" />"Attention ladies and gentlemen, the <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/boeing">Boeing</a> 787 <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/dreamliner">Dreamliner</a> will depart shortly &ndash; any potential fires caused by our <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/lithium-ion">lithium ion batteries</a> will now be contained within the aircraft. Please line up at the gate for imminent boarding!&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Are you ready?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In case you missed it the <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/federal-aviation-administration">Federal Aviation Administration</a>, by publishing an <a href="http://www.ofr.gov/%28X%281%29S%28mbhcfitegbvqq2sjkcdltty1%29%29/OFRUpload/OFRData/2013-09990_PI.pdf">Airworthiness Directive</a> in the Federal Register last week, opened the door for the troubled <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/22/boeings-green-dreamliner-costing-company-and-customers-plenty">&ldquo;green&rdquo; aircraft</a> to return to service in the coming months. The document lays out the specifications required for Boeing to get the extremely costly project moving again, if the changes are implemented and FAA inspectors sign off.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--break--></p>
<p>But don&rsquo;t call it a &ldquo;fix,&rdquo; because engineers don&rsquo;t know what caused the fires in the first place. Boeing&rsquo;s top engineer Michael Sinnett says the new configuration is designed to prevent a fire (the old one wasn&rsquo;t??), <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/04/27/boeing-says-new-battery-system-ensures-787-dreamliner-safety/">according to the Associated Press</a>, but even if a blaze erupts, a casing around the battery will protect passengers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Even if we never know the root cause,&rdquo; Sinnett told reporters in Tokyo, &ldquo;the enclosure keeps the airplane safe, it eliminates the possibility of fire, it keeps heat out of the airplane, it keeps smoke out of the airplane, and it ensures that no matter what happens to the battery, regardless of root cause, the airplane is safe.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;In some ways it almost doesn&rsquo;t matter what the root cause was.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Easy for Sinnett to say. As those who have followed the Dreamliner remember, the plane <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/22/boeings-green-dreamliner-costing-company-and-customers-plenty">suffered &ldquo;thermal runaway&rdquo; events</a> related to the often-suspect lithium ion batteries (also known to heat up in electric vehicles, computers, cell phones, etc.) that culminated in <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/all-nippon-airways">two major incidents</a> with <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/japan-air-lines">Japanese airlines</a> in January. After that regulators worldwide removed the 787 from service so the cause(s) could be investigated.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That didn&rsquo;t do much good. Not only wasn&rsquo;t the source discovered, but Boeing is now broadcasting its ignorance by announcing they narrowed the number of possible causes for the fires to 80 &ndash; and that they addressed them all in the new design!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Undoubtedly as they did research and development for the 787&rsquo;s batteries over 10-plus years, engineers encountered numerous potential causes of fires. Maybe it was 20, or 120, or 1020. Unfortunately, even after all that testing time, they missed &ldquo;thermal event&rdquo; origin Number 1021 (or whatever), and both Boeing and its airline customers have lost millions of dollars due to dormant Dreamliners ever since.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Therefore, now that Sinnett says &ldquo;it almost doesn&rsquo;t matter&rdquo; what the cause was, will be hard to accept for potential future Dreamliner passengers. And <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/02/19/boeing-woes-balloon-battery-fix-remains-mystery">what he said in January</a> in an <a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2020373450_boeing787xml.html">interview</a> with the <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Seattle Times</em> doesn&rsquo;t make the &ldquo;containment&rdquo; solution soothe anxieties either.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;The electrolyte can catch on fire and that can self-sustain,&rdquo; he said at the time. &ldquo;Something like that is very difficult to put out. Because the electrolyte contains an oxidizer, fire suppressants just won&rsquo;t work&hellip;. You have to assume it&rsquo;s not going to go out. You have to assume that it&rsquo;s going to go and that it&rsquo;s going to expend all of its energy.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Besides the FAA, the National Transportation Safety Board wasn&rsquo;t speaking with great confidence about a quick solution in January either, as it explained that the Dreamliner&rsquo;s batteries&rsquo; &ldquo;spewed molten electrolytes.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;This is an unprecedented event," said Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the NTSB. &ldquo;We do not expect to see fire events on board aircrafts. This is a very serious safety concern.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And Hersman added, &ldquo;These events should not happen as far as design of the aircraft. There are multiple systems to protect against a battery event like this. Those systems did not work as intended, we need to understand why.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And the Air Line Pilots Association issued an <a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2020199686_787batterysafetyxml.html">opinion</a> that said &ldquo;a fire from these devices, in any situation, is unacceptable.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So how did Boeing and its safety regulators go from &ldquo;we need to understand&rdquo; to &ldquo;it almost doesn&rsquo;t matter&rdquo; in the space of three months? The near-sudden determination that the manufacturer has nailed down all (80) possible causes for lithium ion fires, and that they rearranged cells to sufficiently prevent future incidents, would seem not to be believable to the majority of the flying public. And when you take together the airplane events with an even more devastating 787 battery explosion in 2006 that caused a &ldquo;devastating lab fire&rdquo; in Arizona, which burned a 10,000-square-foot facility to the ground, and whose cause was never determined, why should anyone believe now the problem is solved?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nevertheless in its <a href="http://www.ofr.gov/%28X%281%29S%28mbhcfitegbvqq2sjkcdltty1%29%29/OFRUpload/OFRData/2013-09990_PI.pdf">new Airworthiness Directive</a> FAA says Boeing must install enclosures and environmental control ducts for the plane&rsquo;s main and auxiliary power unit (APU), and replace the main battery, APU battery, and their respective battery chargers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;We are issuing this AD to minimize the occurrence of battery cell failures and propagation of such failures to other cells and to contain any flammable electrolytes, heat, and smoke released during a battery thermal event in order to prevent damage to critical systems and structures and the potential for fire in the electronics equipment bays.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The directive says Boeing&rsquo;s solution, which the FAA approved in March, took into account &ldquo;all potential causal factors&rdquo; in the two Japanese airline incidents and provides &ldquo;three layers of protection&rdquo; that improve battery reliability and prevent hazardous effects on a Dreamliner. Heretofore the problems with lithium ion batteries were that &ldquo;thermal runaway&rdquo; was a phenomenon in which a cell would overheat and catch fire, then spread to other cells (&ldquo;spewing electrolytes&rdquo;) until the entire blaze would burn out. As Sinnett said, most suppressants are ineffective against these types of fires.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The FAA directive is said to: contain each individual battery cell; prevent the spread from cell to cell; and protect the overall airplane should a battery fire still occur. To address the first factor Boeing plans to encapsulate each cell and use locking nuts with specific torque on each cell terminal, and will improve drainage within the battery case to remove condensation. The battery monitoring and charging unit will also be changed to reduce &ldquo;electrical stress&rdquo; and diminish the likelihood of overcharging.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In addition to that Boeing will add insulation between cells to &ldquo;thermally and electrically isolate&rdquo; the cells to prevent the spread of a problem. &ldquo;High temperature sleeving&rdquo; will be added to wiring harnesses to help prevent short circuits. Also venting will be improved to allow gases, electrolytes and heat to escape if an event occurs. And to protect the overall plane, Boeing will contain each battery case in a sealed stainless steel enclosure that will be connected to a duct that vents outside the plane, thus (theoretically) sending heat, pressure and gases outside the plane.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These are all probably good ideas given the technology they are working with. But if you&rsquo;ve ever seen a lithium ion battery experience &ldquo;thermal runaway&rdquo; in a computer laptop, <a href="http://www.tntairways.com/lithium_video/">for example</a>, the force and the heat can blast a pretty scary hole through metal containment. Perhaps the venting can overcome that phenomenon, but do prospective Dreamliner passengers want to take that chance?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The solution also sound very expensive, which might make you wonder whether all these measures still make the 787 economically worthwhile for both Boeing and its airline customers. Whatever the cause was, the manufacturer still needs not only to overcome the technical problem but also must repair an image that also had a huge hole blasted through it.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The airline pilots have said simple containment is not good enough. And few events incite horror among the public, especially those who fly a lot, like the image of a blazing jetliner plummeting from the sky. Seems like &ldquo;it almost doesn&rsquo;t matter&rdquo; would not inspire confidence among the flying public, but we&rsquo;ll see. All aboard!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paul Chesser is an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center and publishes </em><a href="http://www.carolinaplotthound.com/"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CarolinaPlottHound.com</em></a><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, an aggregator of North Carolina news.</em></p>Air Line Pilots AssociationAll Nippon AirwaysBoeingCorporate Integrity ProjectDreamlinerFederal Aviation AdministrationGovernment Integrity ProjectJapan Air Lineslithium ionlithium ion batteriesNational Transportation Safety BoardMon, 29 Apr 2013 14:14:58 +0000Paul Chesser4450 at http://nlpc.orgTesla CEO Elon Musk Fights Perceptions as Stock Dropshttp://nlpc.org/stories/2013/02/25/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-fights-perceptions-stock-drops
<p><img style="float: right; border: 0px;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/Elon-Musk.jpg" border="0" alt="Elon Musk" width="200" height="263" />Taxpayer-supported <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/tesla">Tesla</a>, recipient of a $465 million stimulus loan guarantee to produce yet another electric toy car (the Model S) for rich people, reported its 4<sup>th</sup> quarter earnings last week. The word from billionaire CEO <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/people/elon-musk">Elon Musk</a> (Flickr photo: Jurvetson) was, &ldquo;<a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/02/21/tesla-hits-a-pothole/">we&rsquo;ll do better next quarter</a> &ndash; promise.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That&rsquo;s a paraphrase, but nonetheless Tesla&rsquo;s announcement fell short of most Wall Street analysts&rsquo; expectations. The company lost $90 million for the quarter as it ramped up production to fill pre-orders, paying workers to <a href="http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_22630393/tesla-earnings-elon-musk-says-profits-will-arrive-this-quarter-after-loss">put in an average of 68 hours per week</a> in December. On Thursday the company <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/60-second-business-break/ci_22639321/biz-break-encouraging-signs-from-hp-while-tesla">suffered the biggest one-day drop in its stock price</a> &ndash; tumbling <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-teslas-stock-is-tanking-2013-2">nearly 10 percent</a> &ndash; in more than a year. Shares fell to $35.16 before <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/21/investing/tesla-stock/">recovering slightly on Friday</a>, but were at $34.38 for Tuesday morning's opening.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--break--></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Unlike its counterpart <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/fisker">Fisker</a>, Musk and Tesla have enjoyed comparatively better media coverage &ndash; until lately. Two weeks ago the <em>New York Times</em> published its now-famous <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/02/11/taxpayer-millions-lithium-ion-and-rich-people-just-dont-mix-well">account of reporter John Broder&rsquo;s drive from Washington, D.C. to Connecticut</a> in a Model S, which featured plenty of white-knuckle range anxiety, freezing feet and ended with a tow-away. As Tesla shares fell in response, Musk responded bombastically with accusations that the report was &ldquo;faked&rdquo; and that <a href="http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-drive">Broder took detours and failed to charge the electric car properly</a>. The test was intended to show that Tesla&rsquo;s battery could survive a range of 200-plus miles before recharging is needed.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the real question Wall Street <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-autos-tesla-20130221,0,3411386.story">appears to be trying to answer</a> is whether the early interest in Tesla has been from &ldquo;early-adopters&rdquo; or &ldquo;only-adopters.&rdquo; In other words, is there sustainability in the market for the Model S (and possible successors) because Musk is doing things better where other electric vehicle producers such as <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/chevy-volt">General Motors</a>, <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/ford-motor-company">Ford</a>, <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/nissan-leaf">Nissan</a>, Fisker and others have failed?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Musk is doing his best to maintain that impression. In recent weeks he has boasted about the fact that Tesla has never had fires with its <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/lithium-ion">lithium ion batteries</a>, unlike many competitors, and he very publicly <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/2013/01/29/why-elon-musk-wants-to-help-boeing-fix-the-dreamliner/">reached out</a> to <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/boeing">Boeing</a> to show how he could help with the technology in their troubled <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/dreamliner">Dreamliner</a> jumbo jets. And despite the disappointing 4<sup>th</sup> quarter results, Musk assured investors that the current quarter would show a profit.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;This is the first quarter that we have been at our target production rate,&rdquo; he said in last week&rsquo;s earnings call. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to be profitable, and I think that&rsquo;s a pretty big deal. It took us an enormous amount of blood, sweat and tears to get there.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The positive rhetoric comes at a critical time, as Tesla plans to produce vehicles at a far greater pace &ndash; 20,000 cars for 2013 &ndash; than it has been. Before even the <em>New York Times</em> article hit <a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/teslas-earnings-indicate-some-customer-cancellations/">there were 1,500 order cancellations</a> in the 4<sup>th</sup> quarter (although it added 6,000 new orders), which left it at 15,000 standing orders at the end of 2012.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But in an <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/video/elon-musk-reacts-to-the-nytimes-tesla-review-rQPRFGMrTMC_wzI7P9qnTg.html">interview with Bloomberg</a>, Musk said the <em>Times</em> review took its toll. He said the company suffered a &ldquo;few hundred&rdquo; cancellations of orders, and that it may have cost Tesla as much as $100 million in the valuation of the company.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Lots of people said it doesn&rsquo;t matter if you&rsquo;re right or wrong; you don&rsquo;t battle the <em>New York Times</em>,&rdquo; Musk said. &ldquo;And it&rsquo;s like, &lsquo;the hell with that.&rsquo; I&rsquo;d rather tell the truth and suffer the consequences, even if they&rsquo;re negative&hellip;.I do think (Broder) fudged an article.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Bloomberg reporter Betty Liu also asked Musk how much effect on demand for the Model S would be different without the U.S. government&rsquo;s $7,500-per-vehicle tax credit it offers for electric cars. He estimated that demand could be as much as 20 percent less without the incentive. And asked of his impressions about dealing with Washington, Musk responded, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s much less corrupt than people think it is.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That&rsquo;s amusing. Some may quibble about what kind of inside-the-Beltway behavior rises to the level of &ldquo;corrupt,&rdquo; but that doesn&rsquo;t mean that plenty of other activity doesn&rsquo;t qualify as distasteful or even objectionable. For example, that the <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/03/09/lawyers-who-backed-obama-advised-failed-loan-programs">high-powered law firms that were tasked with evaluation and documentation</a> of the <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/department-energy">Department of Energy</a>&rsquo;s loan guarantees (including Tesla&rsquo;s) were major donors to Democrats, which assured the passage of the stimulus and <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/people/president-obama">President Obama</a>&rsquo;s green agenda, doesn&rsquo;t pass the smell test.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Musk is also <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/05/15/taxpayers-subsidize-forbes-green-billionaires-schemes">chairman of SolarCity and CEO of SpaceX</a>, and in the Bloomberg interview he estimated he&rsquo;s visited Washington about 200 times, visiting dozens of Senators and at least 150 Congressmen. According to the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/index.php">Center for Responsive Politics</a>, SolarCity spent $535,000 in 2009 and 2010 to lobby Congress and the Department of Energy on climate legislation, the <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/recovery-act">Recovery Act</a>, &ldquo;green workforce training and development,&rdquo; and provisions in various legislation &ldquo;relevant to solar development.&rdquo; SolarCity has <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/print-edition/2011/06/17/solar-firms-want-feds-to-extend.html?page=all">sought to extend a program</a>, due to expire at the end of 2012, that delivers to manufacturers an upfront cash grant in lieu of a 30 percent Investment Tax Credit (called the Section 1603 grant program). According to DOE reports, SolarCity received more than $66 million from that program.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The company also <a href="http://www.doe.gov/articles/energy-department-loan-guarantee-would-support-large-scale-rooftop-solar-power-us-military">won a partial guarantee from DOE of a $344 million loan</a> that will place up to 160,000 rooftop solar installations on military housing across the country.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Similarly, Tesla spent $480,000 from 2007 to 2011 to lobby Congress, the White House, EPA and DOE on climate and energy issues, the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan program, the Promoting Electric Vehicles Act, and the Recovery Act. As mentioned earlier, Tesla received a $465 million loan guarantee from DOE&rsquo;s ATVM program.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Musk is also a generous political donor, mostly to Democrats, although his investments and giving are equally diverse. He gave $290,000 to political candidates and the major parties from 2008 through 2012, which included $66,200 to the Democratic National Committee, $34,400 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and $63,500 to the National Republican Congressional Committee. His presidential candidate was Barack Obama, giving $2,300 for his 2008 campaign and $5,000 for the 2012 cycle. Besides Musk, a former Tesla director, Steve Westly, <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/bundlers.php?id=N00009638">raised hundreds of thousands of dollars</a> for both of President Obama&rsquo;s campaigns <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/bundlers.php?id=N00009638">as a bundler</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the end, when you review the news about Musk and his enterprise, there&rsquo;s a lot of quibbling over matters of degrees. Is his political activity just redistributionist corporate cronyism or actual corruption? Is he telling the truth or is the <em>New York Times</em>, or is it somewhere in-between? Can his electric cars really travel over 200 miles on a charge only to require at least an hour to fully recharge (on the fastest, and rarest, chargers), or don&rsquo;t they?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These would be stupid questions that almost no one would care about if the government didn&rsquo;t gamble public money by giving billionaire Musk &ndash; who just <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahelliott/2012/12/28/tesla-and-spacex-founder-musk-buys-17-million-bel-air-mansion/">bought a $17 million mansion</a> in Bel Air &ndash; the huge loan. While taxpayers subsidize the foolishness of rich people taking at least an hour (and usually longer) to repower their cars, the rest of us struggle to get by in the real world where we can refuel our vehicles in five minutes and be on our way.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Musk has said he has been paying principal and interest on the loan, on time, which is comparatively commendable when you consider the failures of Solyndra, A123 Systems, Fisker and others. But in the big picture, why should taxpayer money be risked for any of these shenanigans &ndash; at all?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em>Paul Chesser is an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center and publishes </em><a href="http://www.carolinaplotthound.com/"><em>CarolinaPlottHound.com</em></a><em>, an aggregator of North Carolina news.</em></p>BoeingCorporate Integrity Projectcrony capitalismDemocratic National CommitteeDemocratic Senatorial Campaign CommitteeDepartment of EnergyDreamlinerelectric carelectric vehiclesElon MuskFiskerGovernment Integrity Projectlithium ionNew York TimesPresident ObamaRecovery ActSolarCitySpaceXSteve WestlystimulusTeslaTue, 26 Feb 2013 10:20:51 +0000Paul Chesser4381 at http://nlpc.orgBoeing Woes Balloon as Battery Fix Remains a Mysteryhttp://nlpc.org/stories/2013/02/19/boeing-woes-balloon-battery-fix-remains-mystery
<p><img style="float: right; border: 0px;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/boeing-787-dreamliner1_0.jpg" border="0" alt="Boeing 787 Dreamliner" width="250" height="197" />Would you be willing to fly on a newly developed jumbo airliner with battery technology that has been known to cause fires, whose exact cause is still unknown, but whose manufacturer has claimed to find a temporary &ldquo;fix&rdquo; that would allegedly contain &ndash;but not prevent &ndash; future flaming flights?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/boeing">Boeing</a> bets you would. <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/airbus">Airbus</a> bets you wouldn&rsquo;t.<!--break--></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Sunday the <em>Seattle Times </em><a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2020373450_boeing787xml.html">reported</a> that Boeing might propose a plan as early as this week to get the troubled <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/dreamliner">Dreamliner</a> airborne again, after two incidents involving fires with the jet&rsquo;s sizable lithium ion battery packs shut down all 50 of the units now in service. The rumored remedy doesn&rsquo;t appear to be an actual repair of the volatile battery itself, but instead &ldquo;includes a heavy-duty titanium or steel containment box around the battery cells&rdquo; and high-pressure tubes to vent dangerous gases outside the fuselage in case of what engineers call &ldquo;thermal runaway.&rdquo; According to the newspaper&rsquo;s sources, the goal is to &ldquo;get the planes flying passengers again.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is worth repeating: If regulators approve, airlines will be able to fly passengers on planes because they think it is sufficient to &ldquo;contain&rdquo; a fire, not just to prevent one. So for those of you inexperienced fliers, as you book online, the future flights can either appear as &ldquo;Dreamliner&rdquo; or &ldquo;787&rdquo; &ndash; don&rsquo;t say you weren&rsquo;t alerted.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As for Airbus, officials are <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324432004578304651988705748.html?mod=googlenews_wsj">done messing with the lithium ion battery</a> for their competitor &ndash; the A350 &ndash; to Boeing&rsquo;s <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/22/boeings-green-dreamliner-costing-company-and-customers-plenty">&ldquo;green&rdquo; machine</a>. The Paris-based subsidiary of European Aeronautic Defence &amp; Space Co. announced late last week they would opt for nickel-cadmium battery systems instead. For the comfort of knowing the plane&rsquo;s power sources are far less-likely to experience a thermal runaway event, Airbus says it will take the competitive &ldquo;hit&rdquo; against the Dreamliner by <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/15/us-airbus-battery-idUSBRE91E07V20130215">adding the weight equivalent of an adult male passenger</a>. Small price to pay in order to keep the development process moving and produce a plane that passengers will not be afraid to board.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile Boeing&rsquo;s dilemma has become downright disturbing. Grounded over a month ago by the Federal Aviation Administration and its counterparts in Japan, India and Europe, investigators still are unable to identify the exact reasons for the problems with the Dreamliner&rsquo;s battery. The final straws &ndash; after <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/31/lobbying-muscle-and-green-agenda-blinded-boeing-reality">reports of numerous failed batteries during in the preceding months</a> &ndash; were a battery pack fire on a <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/japan-air-lines">Japan Air Lines</a> 787 in Boston on Jan. 7, and reports of a burning smell on an <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/all-nippon-airways">All Nippon Airways</a> flight caused an emergency landing in Japan on Jan. 16.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">According to the <em>Seattle Times</em> <a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2020373450_boeing787xml.html">report</a>, because Boeing&rsquo;s engineers and transportation investigators are still stumped, the company is left with no other alternative (other than dumping lithium ions altogether) than the &ldquo;containment&rdquo; plan. However, there is no guarantee the FAA and other national regulators would even approve <em>that</em>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;We&rsquo;re not there yet,&rdquo; said one of the <em>Times</em>&rsquo; anonymous government sources. &ldquo;It wouldn&rsquo;t surprise me if we&rsquo;re still talking weeks before everyone is comfortable.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Weeks? That is an extremely painful possibility (more like a &ldquo;likelihood&rdquo; or &ldquo;probability&rdquo;) for Boeing and its airline customers who bank on every vehicle in their fleet being airworthy. All Nippon &ndash; which <a href="http://whtc.com/news/articles/2013/feb/19/swelling-found-in-apu-battery-on-787-jet-under-japan-probe/">just reported</a> that it found &ldquo;swelling&rdquo; in a second lithium ion battery from the emergency landing last month &ndash; is <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/17/us-boeing-dreamliner-idUSBRE90F1N820130117">reportedly losing $1.1 million per day</a> as a result of the Dreamliner&rsquo;s dormancy, and at the end of January <a href="http://www.travelerstoday.com/articles/4438/20130131/boeing-dreamliner-update-nippon-airways-claim-15.htm">said it had already lost $15 million in revenue</a>. Air India is <a href="http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/dreamliner-grounding-to-cost-ai-18-crore-a-month-113020500158_1.html">estimated to be losing</a> $3.3 million (U.S.) per month. Reuters says the grounding has cost the airlines (United is the only U.S. carrier with Dreamliners) &ldquo;tens of millions of dollars&rdquo; so far with no solution in sight.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The <em>Seattle Times</em> said &ndash; based upon interviews with government and Boeing sources &ndash; that even if the FAA approved the short-term &ldquo;containment&rdquo; approach, it would still take at least three months for Boeing to test the new design, which would hypothetically enable to get the 787 back flying passengers in May. But that is almost certainly unrealistic, especially if the government source&rsquo;s need to talk for &ldquo;weeks before everyone is comfortable&rdquo; is accurate.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;This cannot drag out for six to nine months ... from a financial standpoint. Think about nine months of airplanes just sitting there,&rdquo; said a <em>Times</em> source in Everett, Wash., who they say knows Boeing&rsquo;s problem-solving activities. &ldquo;This is a gut-wrenching issue.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A financial analyst cited by the <em>Times</em> estimated the cost to Boeing at over $25 million per month, and every dollar lost during the shutdown adds to the $15- to $20-million development costs for the Dreamliner. Boeing already has $21 million in 787 inventory with 800 more planes on order.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The astounding costs that are mounting might have been avoided had Boeing not employed a strategy that first took into consideration how much incentives, grants and tax breaks it could extract from state and federal governments, rather than construct for its customers a transport of the first order, built upon proven technologies. As <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/22/boeings-green-dreamliner-costing-company-and-customers-plenty">NLPC</a> has <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/27/boeing-battery-quick-fix-may-be-elusive">reported</a> in <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/31/lobbying-muscle-and-green-agenda-blinded-boeing-reality">recent weeks</a>, instead Boeing has seemingly placed higher priorities on creating an environmentalist- and politician-approved &ldquo;green&rdquo; flying machine. The intervention of governments in the airline and transportation industries have rendered it about as far from free-market and free-trade competition as you can get without it actually being considered outright communism.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Remember the old admonition your parents would often deliver? Do things the right way and don&rsquo;t try to take short cuts. Yet every time government &ndash; which thinks it knows what&rsquo;s better for consumers environmentally and otherwise then they do themselves &ndash; holds up huge stacks of money to get business to change public behavior, more often than not the results are undesirable consequences thanks to the short cut detour away from meeting genuine market demand. Boeing, with <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/31/lobbying-muscle-and-green-agenda-blinded-boeing-reality">nearly $172 million spent on lobbying since 1998</a> on just about every public policy influenced by the U.S. government, has made the pursuit of profits via such short cuts an art form. It&rsquo;s a long way from its 1916 founding in Seattle when <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_E._Boeing">William E. Boeing</a> told a friend before launching his company, &ldquo;We could build a better plane ourselves and build it faster.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now the legendary company, which relocated to Chicago in 2001 because it sought $63 million in public money enticements to move its headquarters, is all about government &ldquo;gimmes.&rdquo; Boeing is stuck with what increasingly looks like a lemon and is reticent to swallow hard and make tough decisions about the systems that totally power its planes.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One certainty is that no flying consumer in his right mind would get on a 787 any time soon, despite what Boeing, the government and the media might say to assuage concerns. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t know what caused it&rdquo; combined with &ldquo;we&rsquo;ve got it contained if it happens again&rdquo; doesn&rsquo;t cut it.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Boeing has already lost millions of dollars, and possibly billions. Worse, it may be on the verge of totally losing the public&rsquo;s trust, if it hasn&rsquo;t already.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em>Paul Chesser is an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center and publishes </em><a href="http://www.carolinaplotthound.com/"><em>CarolinaPlottHound.com</em></a><em>, an aggregator of North Carolina news.</em></p>AirbusAll Nippon AirwaysBoeingCorporate Integrity Projectcorporate welfareDreamlinerFederal Aviation AdministrationGovernment Integrity ProjectJapan Air Lineslithium ionlithium ion batteriesUnited AirlinesWed, 20 Feb 2013 10:34:10 +0000Paul Chesser4375 at http://nlpc.orgTaxpayer Millions, Lithium Ion and Rich People Just Don't Mix Wellhttp://nlpc.org/stories/2013/02/11/taxpayer-millions-lithium-ion-and-rich-people-just-dont-mix-well
<p><img style="float: right;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/Elon-Musk.jpg" border="0" alt="Elon Musk" width="152" height="200" />Undoubtedly alternative energy and transportation innovator <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/people/elon-musk">Elon Musk</a>&nbsp;(Flickr photo: Jurvetson) &ndash; like his competitor for the taxpayer-funded, six-figure electric automobile market Henrik Fisker &ndash; is a smart guy. But will economic and technological realities humble him, or worse, make him look like a fool?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After the experience <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-highway.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=1&amp;">recounted last week</a> by <em>New York Times</em> journalist John Broder, who test drove the Tesla Model S in frigid conditions that required frequent unplanned recharging stops throughout the Northeast, humility is out of the question for Musk. The jury is still out on inanity.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--break--></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The <em>Times</em> published Broder&rsquo;s devastating account on Friday. The plan was for the reporter to set out from the Washington, D.C. area and examine the claims that the Model S battery has a 300-mile range on a full charge, utilizing the carefully spaced new superchargers located at rest areas in Newark, Del. and Milford, Conn. &ndash; approximately 200 miles apart. Broder explained that the 480-volt superchargers (other companies amusingly call them &ldquo;fast chargers&rdquo;) require 30 minutes of juicing to provide 150 miles of range, with an hour needed to fully charge the EV.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The first leg of the trip, from D.C. to the Delaware station, was uneventful, according to Broder. However the recharging process doesn&rsquo;t sound like it went as promoted, requiring 50 minutes to fully power the half-drained lithium ion battery.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">From there it was all-downhill, and not in the gliding &ldquo;wheeee!&rdquo; sense of the term. Rather, Broder noticed a dramatic, sudden drop on the battery indicator, and realized he would need to preserve his power by turning off cabin heat (outside temperatures were in the 30s) and slow down to 54 miles-per-hour, realizing that making it to Milford would be dicey. Range anxiety set in.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;All the while,&rdquo; Broder wrote, &ldquo;my feet were freezing and my knuckles were turning white.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The remainder of his experience (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-highway.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=1&amp;">it must be read to be believed</a>) only got worse. Suffice it to say it was filled with fits, starts, warning signals, an overnight loss in 10-degree Connecticut weather of 65 miles of range, unplanned hours of slower-than-expected travel, and ultimately a tow-away.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Fortunately,&rdquo; Broder observed, &ldquo;the cab of the tow truck was toasty.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Following his report, Tesla&rsquo;s stock price promptly plummeted. <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-11/tesla-falls-after-n-y-times-model-s-test-drive.html">According to Bloomberg</a> shares declined up to 4.4 percent &ndash; &ldquo;the biggest intraday drop since Dec. 13&rdquo; &ndash; before recovering slightly. That sent Musk into emergency <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk">Twitter</a> mode on Monday, looking to mitigate the damage. In consecutive <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/301049593385340928">posts</a>, he <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/301050531923779585">wrote</a>:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;NYTimes article about Tesla range in cold is fake. Vehicle logs tell true story that he didn't actually charge to max &amp; took a long detour.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Tesla blog coming soon detailing what actually happened on Broder&rsquo;s NYTimes &lsquo;range test.&rsquo; Also lining up other journalists to do same drive.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What&rsquo;s that about picking fights with those who buy ink by the barrel (or pixels by the peck)? Shortly afterward Musk moderated his tone a bit, by <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/301070979029934080">posting</a>, &ldquo;Am not against <em>NYTimes</em> in general. They&rsquo;re usually fair &amp; their own prev(ious) Tesla test drive got 300+ miles of range!&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Still, calling a <em>New York Times</em> reporter&rsquo;s work &ldquo;fake&rdquo; (unless you&rsquo;re a conservative, which Musk is <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/05/15/taxpayers-subsidize-forbes-green-billionaires-schemes">NOT</a>) does not sound conciliatory to someone who is otherwise sympathetic. Instead it conjures images of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair">Jayson Blair</a>, which will not get the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grey_Lady">Gray Lady</a> on your good side.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And that&rsquo;s pretty much <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/100450528">what Musk did</a> in an interview with CNBC on Monday. He characterized the article as &ldquo;something of a setup,&rdquo; and accused Broder of taking a detour through Manhattan after not starting his trip fully charged. But according to Broder, the Model S was delivered to him by a Tesla representative and the vehicle <em>was</em> fully charged, which got him to Delaware. Only afterward while passing through New Jersey did he begin to recognize dramatic power loss, according to his report. So either Broder is telling the truth, or he&rsquo;s been possessed by the Blair demon.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Right or wrong, Musk&rsquo;s approach without working out what happened with Broder is risky and puts his company&rsquo;s credibility on the line. It is also reminiscent of <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/fisker">Fisker</a>&rsquo;s tactic last May, when a fire was caused by one of their extended-range electric Karmas, which led to extensive damage to the home of a Texas owner. Afterward Fisker <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/05/10/fisker-insinuates-customer-blame-karma-fire">suggested</a> &ldquo;possible fraud or malicious intent&rdquo; was involved, which the customer did not appreciate. After another fire, <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/08/13/new-fisker-fire-while-taxpayers-cover-utility-bills-empty-plant">in California last August</a>, Fisker struck a similar tone that emphasized the fact that no one was hurt, rather than show concern for the losses of the Karma owner.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;No injuries were reported; the vehicle was parked; and the fire was extinguished safely by the emergency services,&rdquo; a company statement said, dryly.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At least the Tesla Model S didn&rsquo;t catch fire. But Musk&rsquo;s reaction nonetheless exhibits a bit of hubris, which is especially distasteful from a man who asked for, and received, a $465 million loan guarantee from U.S. taxpayers to help build his $101,000 toy electric car for rich people.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For all his smarts, Musk actually is pretty dependent on the government dime. He is <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/05/15/taxpayers-subsidize-forbes-green-billionaires-schemes">best known as co-founder of the company that became PayPal</a>, and is now chairman of SolarCity and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, the private space flight company. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, SolarCity spent $535,000 in 2009 and 2010 to lobby Congress and the <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/department-energy">Department of Energy</a> on climate legislation, the <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/recovery-act">Recovery Act</a>, &ldquo;green workforce training and development,&rdquo; and provisions in various legislation &ldquo;relevant to solar development.&rdquo; SolarCity also sought to extend a program that delivered to manufacturers an upfront cash grant in lieu of a 30 percent Investment Tax Credit (called the Section 1603 grant program). Through the middle of last year, according to DOE reports, SolarCity had received more than $66 million from that program.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The company also <a href="http://www.doe.gov/articles/energy-department-loan-guarantee-would-support-large-scale-rooftop-solar-power-us-military">won a partial guarantee from DOE</a> of a $344 million loan that would place up to 160,000 rooftop solar installations on military housing across the country.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Similarly, Musk&rsquo;s Tesla Motors spent $480,000 from 2007 to 2011 to lobby Congress, the White House, EPA and DOE on climate and energy issues, the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan program, the Promoting Electric Vehicles Act, and the Recovery Act. That was rewarded with the $465 million loan.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Speaking of audacity, while taxpayers ponied up to subsidize Musk&rsquo;s schemes and dreams, late last year he bought a mansion in ritzy Bel Air, Calif., for $17 million. <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324461604578193963996911542.html">According to the <em>Wall Street Journal</em></a>, &ldquo;the 20,248-square-foot home has six bedrooms, nine bathrooms, five fireplaces, a wine cellar that holds 1,000 bottles of wine and a two-story library. The property overlooks Bel-Air Country Club and includes a lighted tennis court, five garages, a pool and spa, gym and guest quarters.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And most recently, earlier this month, Musk felt so good about himself that he <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/2013/01/29/why-elon-musk-wants-to-help-boeing-fix-the-dreamliner/">intruded</a> into <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/boeing">Boeing</a>&rsquo;s business by offering help with the disastrous <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/dreamliner">Dreamliner</a> shutdown. Calling Boeing&rsquo;s lithium ion battery packs &ldquo;<a href="http://www.imotortimes.com/articles/2268/20130131/boeing-787-lithium-battery-fire-dreamliner-defect.htm">inherently unsafe</a>,&rdquo; he boasted that neither Tesla or SpaceX ever had fires, despite &ldquo;fly(ing) high-capacity lithium-ion battery packs in our rockets and spacecraft, which are subject to much higher loads than commercial aircraft and have to function all the way from sea level air pressure to vacuum.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Musk might be right. He might even be able to help. But he also needs the taxpayers&rsquo; help, obviously, and the media&rsquo;s. The arrogant attitude and cavalier flaunting of his personal riches, while acting desensitized to those he needs, will wear thin quickly. He&rsquo;s yet another character the government gives millions to that makes you shake your head.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em>Paul Chesser is an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center and publishes </em><a href="http://www.carolinaplotthound.com/"><em>CarolinaPlottHound.com</em></a><em>, an aggregator of North Carolina news.</em></p>BoeingDepartment of EnergyDreamlinerelectric carelectric vehiclesElon MuskFiskerFisker AutomotiveGovernment Integrity Projectlithium ionNew York TimesPresident ObamaRecovery ActSolarCitystimulusTeslaTue, 12 Feb 2013 14:58:47 +0000Paul Chesser4358 at http://nlpc.orgLobbying Muscle and Green Agenda Blinded Boeing to Realityhttp://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/31/lobbying-muscle-and-green-agenda-blinded-boeing-reality
<p><img style="float: right; border: 0pt none;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/boeing-787-dreamliner1_0.jpg" border="0" alt="Boeing 787 Dreamliner" width="200" height="157" />With the <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-01-29/business/sns-rt-us-boeing-dreamliner-batterybre90t04f-20130129_1_battery-maker-ana-spokesman-ryosei-nomura-lithium-ion-batteries">revelation</a> that <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/all-nippon-airways">All Nippon Airways</a> replaced defective <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/lithium-ion">lithium ion</a> batteries 10 times, <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/japan-air-lines">Japan Air Lines</a> replaced <a href="http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1251117/1/.html">&ldquo;quite a few,&rdquo;</a> and <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/united-airlines">United Airlines</a> replaced <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57566772/united-airlines-japans-ana-replaced-787-batteries/">&ldquo;multiple batteries,&rdquo;</a> in the months preceding the smoke emergency that grounded their <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/dreamliner">Dreamliners</a>, is there anything that can be said about the technology that can overcome its now-horrible reputation?<!--break--></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/boeing">Boeing</a> has worked on the 787 for 10 years or so, with an ample amount of time to determine what kind of battery technology would be functional with the <a href="http://www.boeing.com/commercial/787family/background.html">&ldquo;super-efficient&rdquo;</a> jet with <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/22/boeings-green-dreamliner-costing-company-and-customers-plenty">&ldquo;exceptional environmental performance.&rdquo;</a> Had the <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/chicago">Chicago</a>-based manufacturer &ndash;and its airline <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/united-airlines">customers</a> &ndash; concerned themselves more with achievable plans that built on proven fossil-fuel designs and economic sensibility rather than appeasement of environmental activists, and the accompanying millions of dollars in government subsidies for such, they might not be burning through millions of dollars in costs and lost productivity due to idle airplanes right now. That&rsquo;s in addition to the public image hit they are taking.</p>
<p>There are those who will pooh-pooh the idea that Boeing overreached in its pursuit of &ldquo;green&rdquo; technology, and will argue that the aviation industry always seeks to lower its costs (like any business), especially the biggest ones: labor and fuel. This is true, but when it comes to what powers their aircraft, in a true free market not distorted by government giveaways, businesses such as Boeing would certainly err closer to the tried-and-true rather than the experimental. But because of those massive deformations in the marketplace, behemoth Boeing is in the business of political ingratiation as much as it is in the business of making aviation and aeronautical equipment.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Corporations, including Boeing and the major U.S. airlines, are under more <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/corporate-social-responsibility">pressure</a> than ever to adopt <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/sustainability">&ldquo;sustainability&rdquo;</a> practices that include efforts to <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/11/02/airlines-boast-about-their-greenhouse-plans-then-complain-about-paying-it">reduce carbon dioxide</a>, despite the fact that has little to do with effects on global climate. &ldquo;Green&rdquo; investors such as <a href="http://www.waldenassetmgmt.com/index.html">Walden Asset Management</a> and <a href="http://www.calvertgroup.com/">Calvert Investments</a> buy stock in the companies and then exercise influence as activist shareholders, joining outside environmental pressure groups to sway company decision makers without regard to whether their agenda aligns with profitability goals for the overall stock ownership.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the case of Boeing, such initiatives are an even larger magnet for government relations minions to chase politicians and cabinet agencies to get pieces of the subsidy pie. The company is already <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/boeing-wins-tanker-deal-who-were-their-lobbyists/article/141346">&ldquo;lobbied up&rdquo;</a> to gain contracts and protect interests in obvious places like the Department of Transportation and the Department of Defense, so a regulatory push to promote &ldquo;green&rdquo; technologies is just another opportunity to influence the decision making in Boeing&rsquo;s favor.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Boeing is renowned for its ability to get what it wants in Washington. At the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/index.php">Center for Responsive Politics</a> Boeing ranks as a &ldquo;heavy hitter,&rdquo; which means it is among &ldquo;the 140 biggest overall donors to federal elections since the 1990 election cycle.&rdquo; So donations from its political action committee and employees are significant. For the 2012 campaign cycle, Boeing staffers and entities gave more than $3.1 million in contributions, ranking it 82<sup>nd</sup> overall among giving from corporate entities (according to CRP&rsquo;s compilation of federal data).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Boeing&rsquo;s lobbying acumen is even stronger, spending over $15 million in 2012, placing the company 12<sup>th</sup> for such expenditures, according to CRP. More than $16 million was spent the previous year. Overall Boeing has spent nearly $172 million on lobbying since 1998, exceeding $10 million for the first time in 2007, and never spending less than $15 million in any individual year since then.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What does Boeing lobby for? Everything. A review of its <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/client_reports.php?id=D000000100&amp;year=2009">federal disclosure</a> form for the 4<sup>th</sup> quarter of 2009 &ndash; <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/people/president-obama">President Obama</a>&rsquo;s first year in office &ndash; shows the company lobbied on the issues of aerospace, aviation, budget and appropriations, defense, environment, financial institutions, foreign relations, health care, homeland security, intelligence, labor, tariffs, taxation, trade, and education. Boeing shows intense interest in nearly every appropriations bill, tax change, foreign relationship and regulatory issue that affects its bottom line.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">State and local governments are not left untapped either. In 2001 former CEO <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/print-edition/2011/06/17/phil-condit-who-took-boeing-to.html?page=all">Phil Condit</a> announced Boeing would relocate its headquarters from Seattle, where it was founded in 1916, and put it up for grabs &ndash; ultimately in an auction between Chicago, Dallas and Denver. The Windy City and the State of Illinois <a href="http://www.siteselection.com/ssinsider/incentive/ti0106.htm">wound up the winners</a> with a handsome bid of $63 million in incentives, far exceeding its competitors.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In fact, Boeing is such a master at tapping the public purse that they teach others how it&rsquo;s done. In 2004 former vice president of state and local government relations Robin Stone, at a meeting of the State Government Affairs Council, <a href="http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=1554">co-taught dozens of corporations&rsquo; government relations executives how to extract incentives and tax breaks</a> in a presentation titled, &ldquo;Turn Your State Government Relations Department from a Money Pit into a Cash Cow.&rdquo; The cash-cow workshop advised government relations executives from some of the largest U.S. corporations, including Walmart, Proctor &amp; Gamble, Bank of America, and Microsoft, to &ldquo;provide government with justification&hellip;[a] quid pro quo&rdquo; for granting incentives.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The man who made the co-presentation with Stone, Michael Press of Ernst &amp; Young (which helped Boeing vet the cities in the headquarters search), said the purpose of the talk was to instruct corporate lobbyists to not view their government-relations departments as a necessary administrative cost center, &ldquo;but rather as a source of value.&rdquo; But one North Carolina lawmaker knew what was meant.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Cash cow? You got that right,&rdquo; said N.C. Rep. Paul Stam, a Republican. &ldquo;They look at [government] as just turning on the spigots.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So as masters of the government manipulation game, Boeing views the demonization of fossil fuels (and commensurate regulations that have driven up their costs) and the promotion of &ldquo;green&rdquo; technologies not as challenges, but as opportunities. The lobbyists get their marching orders and go to work. Thus we see on Boeing&rsquo;s federal disclosure forms that they intervene on measures such as the &ldquo;FAA Reauthorization Act,&rdquo; &ldquo;Export-Import Bank Issues,&rdquo; the &ldquo;American Clean Energy and Security Act,&rdquo; the &ldquo;Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act,&rdquo; the &ldquo;Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit Expansion,&rdquo; &ldquo;Amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 on Alternative Simplified Research Credit,&rdquo; &ldquo;Temporary Bonus Research Credit for Energy-related Research,&rdquo; &ldquo;American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009&rdquo; (the stimulus), and &ldquo;Trade related aspects of climate change.&rdquo; And that is just a small fraction of Boeing&rsquo;s lobbying interests.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So it&rsquo;s no surprise that the European Union asked the World Trade Organization in October <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443328404578022060756203132.html?_nocache=1359647755723&amp;user=welcome&amp;mg=id-wsj">for permission to raise $12 billion in tariffs on U.S. goods and services</a> (<em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wall Street Journal</em>, subscription-only), due to damage it says is a result from subsidies to Boeing (a similar case is being pushed by the U.S. against EU-based Airbus). The WTO <a href="http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds353_e.htm">determined</a> that at least $5.3 billion in both state and federal subsidies were awarded to Boeing between 1989 and 2006.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is impossible to isolate out, or calculate, any subsidies that went specifically for the Dreamliner, especially on the federal level. But the State of Washington and some of its local governments <a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2001840736_boeing21.html">dished out $3.2 billion-plus</a> to prevent Boeing from taking 787 (called 7E7 at the time) production elsewhere, most likely where non-union labor costs would be lower. In 2010 Boeing <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">did</em> set up a second assembly plant in a right-to-work state, South Carolina, that <a href="http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20100117/PC1602/301179958">won the company an estimated $900 million in state incentives</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As NLPC <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/22/boeings-green-dreamliner-costing-company-and-customers-plenty">reported earlier this month</a>, the much-delayed 787 has been <a href="http://www.boeing.com/commercial/787family/background.html">promoted</a> as &ldquo;a super-efficient airplane.&rdquo; It was designed in response to airlines&rsquo; demands for an energy-saving aircraft, that provides &ldquo;unmatched fuel efficiency, resulting in exceptional environmental performance,&rdquo; and as the <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">London Telegraph</em> <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/hubs/greentravel/7025139/Boeing-Dreamliner-the-promise-of-greener-flying.html">explained it</a>, represented &ldquo;the promise of greener flying.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now the Dreamliner is idle and a lot of blame is being thrown at a battery that wasn&rsquo;t prepared to handle the tasks it was assigned to do. Unfortunately billions of dollars coerced from taxpayers, in an atmosphere that represented something far from a free market, were used to drown out common sense and distorted the simple customer-vendor relationship.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paul Chesser is an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center and publishes </em><a href="http://www.carolinaplotthound.com/"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CarolinaPlottHound.com</em></a><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, an aggregator of North Carolina news.</em></p>AirbusAll Nippon AirwaysBoeingCalvert Investment ManagementChicagoCorporate Integrity Projectcorporate social responsibilitycorporate welfarecrony capitalismDreamlinerErnst & YoungEuropean UnionFederal Aviation AdministrationGovernment Integrity ProjectIllinoisJapan Air Lineslithium ionNorth CarolinaSouth CarolinaUnited AirlinesWalden Asset ManagementWashington stateWorld Trade OrganizationThu, 31 Jan 2013 16:53:43 +0000Paul Chesser4340 at http://nlpc.orgBoeing Battery Quick Fix May Be Elusivehttp://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/27/boeing-battery-quick-fix-may-be-elusive
<p><img style="float: right;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/2013-01-23T021450Z_1_CBRE90M069R00_RTROPTP_2_BOEING-787-FAA.JPG" border="0" alt="battery photo" width="300" height="200" />The crisis that has enveloped <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/boeing">Boeing</a> over the grounded <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/dreamliner">Dreamliner</a>, at a cost of billions of dollars in losses in addition to what has already been &ldquo;invested&rdquo; in it<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>-- voluntarily by its owner/investors and coercively from taxpayers &ndash; exemplifies perhaps more than any other redistributionist corporatism scheme why government intervention is more headache than help.</p>
<p><!--break--></p>
<p>Pass the industrial-strength Excedrin.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Of immediate concern to the Chicago-based jet-manufacturer is the <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/lithium-ion">lithium-ion</a> battery that powers so many of the 787&rsquo;s critical functions. Two instances of &ldquo;thermal runaway&rdquo; on Dreamliners&rsquo; owned by Japan-based airlines caused that country, and the U.S. <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/federal-aviation-administration">Federal Aviation Administration</a>, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/16/travel/dreamliner-faa/index.html?hpt=hp_t3">to suspend their use</a> pending investigations. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/16/travel/dreamliner-faa/index.html?hpt=hp_t3">Other flaws since July</a> such as cracked engines, damaged cockpit windows, and fuel leaks have compounded concerns.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the scare factor surrounding the battery is the biggest deal.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;This is an unprecedented event," said Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board. &ldquo;We do not expect to see fire events on board aircrafts. This is a very serious safety concern.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Well, it&rsquo;s sort of unprecedented. The <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Seattle Times</em> <a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2020199686_787batterysafetyxml.html">reported</a> on Thursday that a 787 battery explosion caused a &ldquo;devastating lab fire&rdquo; in Arizona in 2006, burning a 10,000-square-foot facility to the ground. According to research by reporter Dominic Gates, the blaze was ignited during testing by the manufacturer of Boeing&rsquo;s charging control systems, Securaplane Technologies of Tucson. While Boeing claimed the charging test was improperly set up, various investigative authorities offered several potential explanations, and the official cause was not determined.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;The ruinous fire resisted the initial efforts of two employees with fire extinguishers and escalated,&rdquo; Gates reported, &ldquo;despite the dispatch of a fleet of fire trucks&hellip;. It reached temperatures of about 1,200 degrees and resulted in losses of millions of dollars.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A basic explanation of lithium ion batteries and their composition helps to understand why experts use the term &ldquo;runaway.&rdquo; During the FAA certification the Air Line Pilots Association raised their concerns about the potential for fires from the batteries, and referenced a 2006 FAA report that only a small amount of heat can cause electrolytes &ldquo;to forcefully vent ... through the relief ports near the positive terminal&hellip;. The electrolyte is highly flammable and easily ignites when exposed to an open flame or hot surface.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Worse, the means to suppress such fires are complex, as evidenced in the Securaplane incident. In an interview with the <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Times</em>, Boeing&rsquo;s chief 787 project engineer Mike Sinnett acknowledged the challenges with the technology.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;The electrolyte can catch on fire and that can self-sustain,&rdquo; he told reporter Gates. &ldquo;Something like that is very difficult to put out. Because the electrolyte contains an oxidizer, fire suppressants just won&rsquo;t work&hellip;. You have to assume it&rsquo;s not going to go out. You have to assume that it&rsquo;s going to go and that it&rsquo;s going to expend all of its energy.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That concept is illustrated in an online <a href="http://www.tntairways.com/lithium_video/">video</a> of a laptop computer whose battery, for demonstration purposes, was forced into a &ldquo;runaway&rdquo; condition. As a result a cell reacts, and a chain effect leads the instability to spread to other cells as the heat intensifies. Similar to the explanation in the FAA report cited by the ALPA, the electrolytes &ldquo;forcefully vent&rdquo; by blowing a hole in the palm rest of the laptop, followed by subsequent blasts and bursts of flames.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now imagine that lithium ion technology in units hundreds of times that size. A helpful <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Seattle Times</em> <a href="http://seattletimes.com/ABPub/zoom/html/2020199880.html">graphic</a> shows the two enormous cell packs located both fore and aft the 787, underneath the passenger deck. The cells are compartmentally designed so as to limit the &ldquo;runaway&rdquo; spread to other cells, and any needed venting in case of failure is directed outside the plane.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That design did not prevent the a fire aboard an empty Japan Airlines Dreamliner in Boston, or a burning smell on an All Nippon Airways 787 that spurred an emergency landing in Japan. Preliminary <a href="http://www.ntsb.gov/news/2013/130120.html">investigations</a> by the NTSB <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/21/travel/boeing-dreamliner/index.html">ruled out overcharging</a> as a cause, and getting the Dreamliner back in the air may not come soon, according to a CNN report.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;It does not sound like a quick resolution is in store for Boeing,&rdquo; said Mary Schiavo, a former U.S. Transportation Department inspector general.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Thursday NTSB showed the remains of the charred electronic systems from the Boston incident, explaining that the battery &ldquo;spewed molten electrolytes.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;These events should not happen as far as design of the aircraft,&rdquo; said Hersman, the NTSB chairwoman. &ldquo;There are multiple systems to protect against a battery event like this. Those systems did not work as intended, we need to understand why.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That fires &ldquo;should not happen&rdquo; may have been lost on the FAA, which <a href="http://www.independent.ie/business/world/faa-faces-questions-over-battery-approval-for-boeings-planes-as-two-failures-probed-3363562.html">according to Reuters</a> granted special approval in 2007 to Boeing for use of lithium-ions. According to the news agency&rsquo;s review of government documents and interviews with battery experts, it was good enough for the FAA that the 787 featured a &ldquo;contain-and-vent system&rdquo; that &ldquo;was sufficient to control the build-up of explosive or toxic gases, except in situations considered &lsquo;extremely remote.&rsquo;&rdquo; That raises questions about how likely the FAA believed the potential for dangerous &ldquo;thermal runaway&rdquo; was, and whether it felt that safety systems for potential fires were enough for it to grant approval, rather than the prevention of fires in the first place. It certainly misaligns with the Air Line Pilots Association <a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2020199686_787batterysafetyxml.html">opinion</a> that &ldquo;a fire from these devices, in any situation, is unacceptable.&rdquo; The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee plans a hearing to investigate the FAA&rsquo;s certification of the Dreamliner.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The bottom line is Boeing, its customers, and its regulators have an embarrassing dilemma on their hands that fell short of aforethought, despite its 10-plus years of design, development and construction. The problems with lithium ions of all sizes are well known, and experience shows that the issue doesn&rsquo;t have to be the battery itself. It could be in the charging, or in the external temperatures, or in the systems it interacts with, or in a minor flaw, or some kind of chemical imbalance &ndash; or something else.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And now a Massachusetts Institute of Technology battery expert is <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2013/01/27/mit-professor-battery-fix-could-ground-787-until-2014/">recommending</a> (via Forbes) that Boeing dump lithium ion in favor of safer, but heavier, nickel metal-hydride batteries. If the company determines that such a drastic change is necessary for the future of the Dreamliner, then certification of the updated plane could take until 2014. Meanwhile Boeing&rsquo;s warranty costs to its customers could be in the range of $550 million due to the grounded 787s, <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/business/bloomberg/article/Dreamliner-s-Promise-Keeps-Airline-CEOs-Wedded-4210563.php">according to Wall Street analyst Howard Rubel</a> of Jefferies Group.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/22/boeings-green-dreamliner-costing-company-and-customers-plenty">&ldquo;green&rdquo; Dreamliner</a> was supposed to be about big savings via fuel efficiency, new technologies and construction materials, all which were supposed to be made to magically appear <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/24/video">thanks to billions of dollars in government incentives</a>, primarily to fight the cause of global warming. Talk about unintended consequences.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paul Chesser is an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center and publishes </em><a href="http://www.carolinaplotthound.com/"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CarolinaPlottHound.com</em></a><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, an aggregator of North Carolina news.</em></p>Air Line Pilots AssociationAll Nippon AirwaysBoeingclimate changeCorporate Integrity ProjectDreamlinerFederal Aviation Administrationglobal warmingGovernment Integrity ProjectJapan Air Lineslithium ionNational Transportation Safety BoardSecuraplane TechnologiesSun, 27 Jan 2013 22:04:59 +0000Paul Chesser4331 at http://nlpc.orgVIDEO: Green Technology Hobbling Boeing's 787 Dreamliner?http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/24/video
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<p>NLPC Associate Fellow Paul Chesser was a guest last night on the Willis Report on Fox Business Network. Here's a transcript:<!--break--></p>
<p><strong>Gerri Willis</strong>: The recent string of battery fires on Boeing 787 Dreamliners could be traced to one thing says my next guest. You can simply point the finger at the government's obsession with pushing green energy. Paul Chesser, associate fellow at the National Legal and Policies Center joins me now. Paul, welcome back to the show. You know, it occurred to me that we are reporting on this Boeing story all wrong. All the reporting just talks about the fires. It never goes back to this idea that companies like Boeing are being pushed very hard by governments all over the world to make these green products. Whether they are ready for the market or not.</p>
<p><strong>Paul Chesser</strong>: Right. Well, you know, Boeing may be a little bit further down the chain, but it is a result of that. You know, the green energy agenda ever since Al Gore in <em>An Inconvenient Truth</em> came out and was pushing the cause of climate change and trying to make transportation more fuel efficient. And you know, companies are going to try to be more fuel efficient anyway. But this is to the point where they're pushing technology, pushing efficiencies that the technology may not be ready. And the government is incentivizing it, they're putting...</p>
<p><strong>Gerri Willis</strong>: Right.</p>
<p><strong>Paul Chesser</strong>: ...billions and billions of dollars out there for companies like Boeing, for electric vehicle companies, for battery companies said produced this technology that is just not ready for the demand that they have.</p>
<p><strong>Gerri Willis</strong>: Let's talk about what is green about the Dreamliner. The exterior of the thing is made of different materials, more lightweight materials. And then they have this lithium ion battery like you do in your laptop, right?</p>
<p><strong>Paul Chesser:</strong> That's right. They say the popular science says the Dreamliner is about eighty percent composite. I guess, composite materials, they take a lot of aluminum of it. And then lithium ion battery, there's all kinds of various technologies for the lithium ion battery. They use different metals for it. But they all have the same problem. They have this thing they call, the experts called, thermal run away where you know...</p>
<p><strong>Gerri Willis</strong>: They get hot.</p>
<p><strong>Paul Chesser</strong>: ...they overheat. They warm-up. They get hot. Sometimes, they cause fires. We've seen stories about them in the laptops, in cell phones, in the Chevy Volt. And that is what is concerning the FAA right now with the Dreamliner and to the point where they and some airlines all around the world have grounded their seven eighty seven until they figure out what's wrong.</p>
<p><strong>Gerri Willis</strong>: Well, I got to tell you, here are the Dreamliner claims from Boeing. Unmatched fuel efficiency resulting in exceptional environmental performance. Using twenty percent less fuel than similar planes. Of course, we all want that but I got to tell you, Paul, everybody else in my group, we've all had problems with lithium, lithium ion batteries. I mean, it's a surprise. You pick up your laptop. It's burning hot and it's because the batteries are overheating. Should we be surprised by this?</p>
<p><strong>Paul Chesser:</strong> Well, no. But you know, I told somebody on the radio today, I have a laptop that ran really hot. It was a Mac book. I replaced it this year and it runs a lot cooler, a lot better. They can improve the technology, but now they're putting them in cars, they're putting them in airplanes, and these are enormous batteries. They are just not -- they have not been tested adequately. And you know, the FAA did a lot of testing and they spent a lot of time on this, but they have been in design and development for about ten years now. They still have not worked out all the bugs.</p>
<p><strong>Gerri Willis</strong>: That's not reassuring.</p>
<p><strong>Paul Chesser</strong>: And just because it is incentivized. It does not mean it's going to happen. It doesn't mean it's ready.</p>
<p><strong>Gerri Willis</strong>: Paul, before you go, how are taxpayers on the hook for this?</p>
<p><strong>Paul Chesser</strong>: Well, the state of Washington offered billions of dollars to keep the Dreamliner. Boeing wanted to get out of Washington because of union labor costs.</p>
<p><strong>Gerri Willis</strong>: Right.</p>
<p><strong>Paul Chesser</strong>: They move their headquarters to Chicago ten or fifteen years ago. They were desperate to keep the Dreamliner, so they ponied up a lot of money. South Carolina got part of the production of the Dreamliner. The FAA is putting millions in incentives for this. So it's another so-called taxpayer investment in green technology. Look at what the results are...</p>
<p><strong>Gerri Willis</strong>: Right.</p>
<p><strong>Paul Chesser</strong>:...in Japan is losing about a million dollars a day by having this airplane grounded.</p>
<p><strong>Gerri Willis</strong>: You know, there are always problems when you roll on a new product in that industry. I think we have seen it. This is sort of over the top at this point and I think you got to ask yourself would we be better off if the airline makers, the people who are making these planes themselves were making the innovations themselves without all the help, without all the prodding and the pushing? What do you say?</p>
<p><strong>Paul Chesser</strong>: Right. Well, the other side of pushing the green is the demonizing of fossil fuels. And you know, those regulations have strangled it and driven up the cost of fossil fuels. Why couldn't, if there was a true free market, why couldn't we have cheaper fossil fuels, you know, clean, clean burned and everything to do the functions that these airplanes need. They replaced a lot of what the fossil fuels did in the Dreamliner with battery power, and that's why they're so dependent on the lithium ion battery. It's going to be hard to replace. It's really a big part of the structure of the airplane.</p>
<p><strong>Gerri Willis</strong>: Right. That's going to be a long haul to fix that. Paul, thanks for coming on tonight. Always great to hear from you. Appreciate it.</p>
<p><strong>Paul Chesser</strong>: Good to be with you again.</p>
<p><strong>Gerri Willis</strong>: All right. Boeing, as we were talking about, faced fierce opposition when it was building a plant for the ill-fated Dreamliner. The fight came from unions as we said who didn't want the company to move to a right to work state. But soon unions may not have the power they used to. They suffered a sharp decline in membership last year from nearly twelve percent of all workers to just over eleven. And that is the lowest level since the nineteen thirties. Total union membership fell by about four hundred thousand workers and is now under fourteen point five million. Unions have steadily lost ground with members since their peak in the nineteen fifties - as they should. Back then union serve the real purpose standing for the workers, the little guy, the average Joe. Now, they're more of a political machine and the only ones they care about are the people in the front office.</p>
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<noscript>Watch the latest video at &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://video.foxbusiness.com" mce_href="http://video.foxbusiness.com"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;video.foxbusiness.com&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;</noscript>787BoeingCorporate Integrity ProjectDreamlinerGovernment Integrity Projectgreen energylithium ion batteriesNLPC TVThu, 24 Jan 2013 18:03:42 +0000NLPC Staff4326 at http://nlpc.orgBoeing's Green Dreamliner Costs the Company, Customers and Taxpayershttp://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/22/boeings-green-dreamliner-costing-company-and-customers-plenty
<p><img style="float: right; border: 0pt none;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/boeing-787-dreamliner1_0.jpg" border="0" alt="Boeing 787 Dreamliner" width="200" height="157" />Seemingly endless government subsidies and the impetus to &ldquo;go green&rdquo; have made a mockery yet again of those who direct their business toward pleasing politicians and activist groups rather than delivering quality products built upon a proven history of performance.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Such is the case with <a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/boeing">Boeing</a>&rsquo;s troubled &ndash; and now <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/16/travel/dreamliner-faa/index.html?hpt=hp_t3">grounded</a> &ndash; Dreamliner.</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">The much-delayed 787 is supposed to be &ldquo;<a href="http://www.boeing.com/commercial/787family/background.html">a super-efficient airplane</a>.&rdquo; Designed (so Boeing says) in response to airlines&rsquo; demands for an energy-saving transport, the Dreamliner provides &ldquo;unmatched fuel efficiency, resulting in exceptional environmental performance.&rdquo; Boeing claims it uses 20 percent less fuel than similarly sized planes, in part by making it lighter by using composite materials for 50 percent of the primary structure, including the fuselage and wing. <a href="http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-01/why-boeings-787-dreamliner-such-piece-crap">According to <em>Popular Science</em></a>, the Dreamliner is 80-percent composite &ldquo;by volume.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the main problem Boeing has with the Dreamliner &ndash; which has led airlines worldwide and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to shut them down &ndash; is in their lithium ion batteries, whose chemistry and make-up are known for their potential for &ldquo;thermal runaway.&rdquo; The stability of the batteries came into question after overheating &ndash; and sometimes <a href="http://www.tntairways.com/lithium_video/">fires</a> &ndash; have occurred in <a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/news/406334/safer-lithium-ion-batteries/">laptop computers</a>, cell phones and <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/11/06/chevy-volt-again-suspected-house-fire">electric cars</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;The battery failures resulted in release of flammable electrolytes, heat damage, and smoke on two Model 787 airplanes,&rdquo; the FAA <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/16/travel/dreamliner-faa/index.html?hpt=hp_t3">announced last week</a>. &ldquo;The root cause of these failures is currently under investigation. These conditions, if not corrected, could result in damage to critical systems and structures, and the potential for fire in the electrical compartment.&rdquo;&nbsp;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://nlpc.org/category/keywords/united-airlines">United Airlines</a> is the only American carrier that flies 787s, but Boeing has orders of more than 800 of the aircraft from 57 customers around the world, valued by the company at more than $185 billion. Undoubtedly cost-cutting conscious airlines, whose greatest costs are labor and fuel, are eager for a more efficient plane. But as is the case with automobiles and SUVs, the pursuit of more lightweight vehicles often mean <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/296998/cafe-standards-kill-deroy-murdock">compromises in safety and protection</a> of passengers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As a complement to the constant push by the Obama administration and environmental groups to kill fossil fuels by artificially driving up their costs via regulations, they have promoted the increased use of electricity (as though fossil fuels have nothing to do with its generation) as a replacement. The implications of that have led to seemingly desperate, and still elusive, attempts (through billions of dollars in &ldquo;research&rdquo; and subsidies for Obama-crony &ldquo;green&rdquo; companies) to make storage of electricity viable. And with lithium-ion the major technology of choice for battery advancement, that too has become a concern for safety in a seeming trade-off for efficiency.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">CNN <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/16/travel/dreamliner-passenger-worries/index.html">reported Thursday</a> that the Dreamliner&rsquo;s batteries are the greatest safety concern. According to University of Dayton professor Raul Ordonez, an aircraft electrical and computer engineer who spent time observing Dreamliner development at Boeing's Seattle headquarters, the 787 uses electricity to run more systems than any other aircraft in its fleet. &lsquo;It takes lots of battery power to run electricity through those systems,&rdquo; the news network reported, and according to Ordonez, &ldquo;These kinds of batteries are slightly more likely to cause problems.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em>Popular Science</em> explained that the lithium-ions in the 787 are used to handle many of the functions, such as de-icing and cabin pressurization, that in earlier models were powered by &ldquo;super-hot, super-pressurized&rdquo; air &ndash; called &ldquo;bleed air&rdquo; &ndash; from within the engine.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Gadget makers have worked for years on cooling methods so their batteries don&rsquo;t catch on fire,&rdquo; PopSci reported, &ldquo;and sometimes they do anyway, but these batteries are pretty small and not all that hazardous. The batteries in a Dreamliner, on the other hand, are huge.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And sounding a serious note of concern, the magazine compared the differences between the roll-out of Boeing&rsquo;s 777, whose &ldquo;aviation occurrences&rdquo; were relatively easy fixes, versus the systems issues on the Dreamliner.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;&hellip;You can't just swap out the batteries,&rdquo; PopSci explained, &ldquo;since there are no other batteries with the same size and energy storage, and as the batteries are a much more integral part of the plane&rsquo;s entire operation, this isn&rsquo;t a small issue.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The airlines, along with auto companies and others in the energy-dependent corporate world, have twisted into technology contortions as they cower from threats by environmental pressure groups that couldn&rsquo;t identify or acknowledge an unintended consequence if it torched a rainforest. As the <em>London Telegraph</em> <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/hubs/greentravel/7025139/Boeing-Dreamliner-the-promise-of-greener-flying.html">reported three years ago</a>, the Dreamliner was supposed to represent &ldquo;the promise of greener flying.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The airlines are fully on-board with the cause, except when it costs them in situations where it&rsquo;s hard to pass on to customers. Such was the case when, as <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/11/02/airlines-boast-about-their-greenhouse-plans-then-complain-about-paying-it">NLPC reported in November 2011</a>, the European Union planned to implement surcharges for the carriers&rsquo; international carbon dioxide emissions on trips to its member countries.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But NLPC also highlighted the absurd lengths some U.S. airlines went to demonstrate their eco-consciousness. For example, American Airlines <a href="http://www.aa.com/pubcontent/en_US/aboutUs/environmental/article1.jsp">proclaimed on its Web site</a>, &ldquo;Our long-term goal is to improve our fuel efficiency by 30 percent within 20 years. Upgrading our fleet with new, lighter, more fuel-efficient jets that also offer our passengers more comfort and amenities will continue to be one of our chief strategies for reaching that goal.&rdquo; American even reveled in minutiae, <a href="http://www.aa.com/i18n/aboutUs/environmental/article3.jsp">boasting</a> it had switched &ldquo;to single-service decaf coffee&rdquo; on flights, and thus &ldquo;have reduced excess weight onboard, reducing fuel burn and emissions.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And Dreamliner customer United Airlines similarly showed off its eco-mindedness, claiming it had &ldquo;reduced CO2 emissions on our mainline fleet by 11 percent from 2008 to 2009&hellip;while continuing to improve our fuel efficiency.&rdquo; United was so proud of its &ldquo;corporate social responsibility&rdquo; that it boasted in its 2009-2010 report, &ldquo;We put significant resources towards efforts to address climate change, and actively engage with our domestic and international industry associations&hellip;on the environment and other industry issues.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And not only did the airlines strongly advocate for Boeing&rsquo;s &ldquo;green&rdquo; Dreamliner, but so also did both state and federal governments strongly incentivize its design and construction &ndash; so much that the EU <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443328404578022060756203132.html">sought permission</a> from the World Trade Organization to impose penalties on U.S. companies for violations of trade rules because of the massive subsidies for the 787.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now with the grounding, and already many delays of delivery from existing orders, Boeing and its airline customers may be looking at unforeseen costs if they can&rsquo;t remedy the battery issues in a short timeframe. For example, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/17/us-boeing-dreamliner-idUSBRE90F1N820130117">according to Reuters</a>, Japan&rsquo;s All Nippon Airways is losing as much as $1.1 million a day due to the 787&rsquo;s inactivity, and the news agency reported that &ldquo;by Boeing&rsquo;s accounting, the 787 program will not be considered profitable until the company has delivered 1,100 Dreamliners.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That sounds eerily reminiscent of the milestones and subsidies needed to make electric cars viable, doesn&rsquo;t it? Such are the unintended consequences that are missed by those blinded by environmental extremist schemes.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em>Paul Chesser is an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center and publishes </em><a href="http://www.carolinaplotthound.com/"><em>CarolinaPlottHound.com</em></a><em>, an aggregator of North Carolina news.</em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Related:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2010/03/10/northrop-drops-tanker-bid-nlpc-exposed-boeing-scandal">Northrop Drops Tanker Bid; NLPC Exposed Boeing Scandal</a><em><br /></em></p>airlinesAll Nippon AirwaysAmerican AirlinesBoeingCorporate Integrity ProjectDreamlinerenvironmentalismFederal Aviation AdministrationGovernment Integrity Projectlithium ionPresident ObamaUnited AirlinesWorld Trade OrganizationWed, 23 Jan 2013 13:45:56 +0000Paul Chesser4321 at http://nlpc.org